my seven-year-old grandson sleeps just
down the hall from me and he wakes up a
lot of mornings and he says you know
this could be the best day ever and
other times in the middle of the night
he calls out in a tremulous voice Nanna
will you ever get sick and die I think
this pretty much says it for me and most
of the people I know that we're a mixed
grill of happy anticipation and dread so
I sat down a few days before my 61st
birthday
and I decided to compile a list of
everything I know for sure there's so
little truth in the popular culture and
it's good to be sure of a few things for
instance I am no longer 47 although this
is the age I feel and the age I like to
think of myself as being my friend Paul
used to say in his late 70s that he felt
like a young man was something really
wrong with him our true person is
outside of time and space but looking at
the paperwork I can in fact see that I
was born in 1954 my inside self is
outside of time and space it doesn't
have an age I'm every age I've ever been
and so are you although I can't help
mentioning as an aside that it might
have been helpful if I hadn't followed
the skincare rules of the 60s which
involved getting as much Sun as possible
it will slathered in baby oil and
basking in the glow of a tin foil
reflector shield it was so liberating
though to face the truth that I was no
longer in the last throes of middle-age
that I decided to write down every
single true thing I know people feel
really doomed and overwhelmed these days
and they keep asking me what's true so I
hope that my list
of things I'm almost positive about
might offer some basic operating
instructions to anyone who's feeling
really overwhelmed or beleaguered number
one the first interesting is that all
truth is a paradox life is both a
precious unfathomably beautiful gift and
it's impossible here on the Incarnation
'el side of things it's been a very bad
match for those of us who are born
extremely sensitive it's so hard and
weird that we sometimes wonder if we're
being punked it's filled simultaneously
with heartbreaking sweetness and beauty
desperate poverty floods and babies and
acne and Mozart all swirled together I
don't think it's an ideal system number
two
almost everything will work again if you
unplug it for a few minutes
[Laughter]
including you three there is almost
nothing outside of you that will help in
any kind of lasting way unless you're
waiting for an organ you can't buy a
cheap or date serenity and peace of mind
this is the most horrible truth and I so
resent it but it's an inside job and we
can't arrange peace or lasting
improvement for the people we love most
in the world they have to find their own
ways their own answers
you can't run along side your grown
children with sunscreen and chapstick on
their hero's journey you have to release
them it's disrespectful not to and if
it's someone else's problem you probably
don't have the answer anyway our help is
usually not very helpful our help is
often toxic and help is the sunny side
of control stop helping so much don't
get your help and goodness all over
everybody this brings us to number four
everyone is screwed up broken clingy and
scared even the people who seem to have
it most together they are much more like
you than you would believe so try not to
compare your insides to other people's
outsides it will only make you worse
than you already are
also you can't save fix or rescue any of
them or get anyone sober what help me
get clean and sober thirty years ago was
the catastrophe of my behavior and
thinking so I have some sober friends
for help and I turn to a higher power
one acronym for God is the gift of
desperation g.od or as a sober friend
put it by the end I was deteriorating
faster than I could lower my standards
[Applause]
so God might mean in this case me
running out of anymore good ideas while
fixing and saving and trying to rescue
is futile radical self-care is quantum
and it radiates out from you into the
atmosphere like a little fresh air it's
a huge gift to the world when people
respond by saying well isn't she full of
herself
just smile obliquely like Mona Lisa and
make both of you a nice cup of tea being
full of affection for one's goofy
self-centered cranky annoying self is
home it's where world peace begins
number 5 chocolate with 75 percent cacao
is not actually a food its best use is
as a bait in snake traps for to balance
the legs of wobbly chairs it was never
meant to be considered an edible number
6
writing every writer you know writes
really terrible first drafts but they
keep their butt in the chair that's the
secret of life that's probably the main
difference between you and them they
just do it they do it by prearrangement
with themselves they do it as a debt of
honor they tell stories that come
through them one day at a time little by
little when my older brother was in
fourth grade he had a report a term
paper on birds do the next day Jack he
hadn't started so my dad sat down with
him with an Audubon book paper pencils
and Brad's for those of you who have
gotten a little less young and remember
Brad and he said to my brother just take
it bird by bird buddy
just read about pelicans and then write
about pelicans in your own voice and
then find out about chickadees and tell
us about them in your own voice and then
geese so the two most important things
about writing our bird by bird and
really god-awful
first drafts if you don't know where to
start remember that every single thing
that happened to you is yours and you
get to tell it if people wanted you to
write more warmly about them they should
have behaved better
you're going to feel like hell if you
wake up some day and you never wrote the
stuff that is tugging on the sleeves of
your heart your stories memories visions
and songs your truth your version of
things in your own voice that's really
all you have to offer us and that's also
why you were born seven publication and
temporary creative successes are
something you have to recover from they
kill as many people as not they will
hurt damage and change you in ways you
cannot imagine the most degraded and
evil people I've ever known our male
writers who have had huge bestsellers
and yet returning to number one that all
truth is paradox it's also a miracle to
get your work published to get your
stories read and heard just try to bust
yourself gently of the fantasy that
publication will heal you that it will
fill the Swiss cheesy holes inside of
you it can't it won't but writing can so
can singing in a choir or a bluegrass
band so can painting community murals or
birding or fostering old dogs that no
one else will number eight families
families are hard hard hard no matter
how cherished and astonishing they may
also be again see number one at family
gatherings where you suddenly feel
homicidal or suicidal remember that in
all cases it's a miracle that any of us
specifically were conceived and born
earth is forgiveness school it begins
with forgiving yourself and then you
might as well start at the dinner table
that way you can do this work in
comfortable pants
when william blake said that we are here
to learn to endure the beams of love he
knew that your family would be an
intimate part of this even as you want
to run screaming for your cute little
life but I promise you are up to it you
can do it cinderelly you can do it and
you will be amazed lime food try to do a
little better I think you know what I
mean
[Applause]
number ten grace grace is spiritual
wd-40 or water wings the mystery of
grace is that God loves Henry Kissinger
and Vladimir Putin and me exactly as
much as he or she loves your new
grandchild go figure
the movement of grace is what changes us
heals us and heals our world to summon
gray faith help and then buckle up grace
finds you exactly where you are but it
doesn't leave you where it found you and
grace won't look like Casper the
Friendly Ghost
regrettably but the phone will ring or
the mail will come and then against all
odds you'll get your sense of humor
about yourself back laughter really is
carbonated holiness it helps us breathe
again and again and gives us back to
ourselves and this gives us faith in
life and each other and remember grace
always bats last 11 God just means
goodness it's really not all that scary
it means the divine or a loving
animating intelligence or as we learn
from the great deteriorate the cosmic
muffin a good name for God is not me
Emerson said that the healthiest person
on earth is the one who learns from
nature the lessons of worship so go
outside a lot and look up my pastor said
you can trap bees on the bottom of mason
jars without lids because they don't
look up so they just walk around
bitterly bumping into the glass walls go
outside look up secret of life and
finally death number 12
Wow and yikes it's so hard to bear when
a few people you cannot live without die
you'll never get over these losses and
no matter what the cultures
says you're not supposed to we
Christians like to think of death as a
major change of address but in any case
the person will live again fully in your
heart if you don't feel it all like
Leonard Cohen said there are cracks and
everything and that's how the light gets
in and that's how we feel our people
again fully alive also the people will
make you laugh out loud at the most
inconvenient times and that's the great
good news but their absence will also be
a lifelong nightmare of homesickness for
you grief and friends time and tears
will heal you to some extent tears will
bathe and baptize and hydrate and
moisturize you and the ground on which
you walk do you know the first thing
that God says to Moses he says take off
your shoes because this is holy ground
all evidence to the contrary it's hard
to believe that it's the truest thing I
know when you're a little bit older like
my tiny personal self you realize that
death is as sacred as birth and don't
worry get on with your life almost every
single death is easy and gentle with the
very best people surrounding you for as
long as you need you won't be alone
doesn't they'll help you cross over to
whatever awaits us as ROM das said when
all is said and done we're really just
all walking each other home I think
that's it but if I think of anything
else I'll let you know thank you
I was very surprised to be asked to come
because it is not my realm technology or
designer entertainment I mean my realm
is sort of faith and writing and kind of
lurching along together and I was
surprised that they said I I could give
a talk and I said I'd love to if you
don't know where to start remember that
every single thing that happened to you
is yours and you get to tell it people
are very very frightened and feel really
doomed in America these days and I just
wanted to help people get their sense of
humor about it and to realize how much
isn't a problem if you take an action
and take a really healthy or loving or
friendly action you'll have loving and
friendly feelings