(Mana is Maori for strength, courage, fortitude, one’s essence of spirit, steady, gentle strong.)
Mana
Up, out from deep ocean
Islands emerge in primordial light
Soon home to fantastical life.
Brave peoples find this place,
Bringing their love,
Family ,
Mana.
Place of refuge for all who come
All seeking new beginnings,
A sacred place for their mana
To be, finally,
Home.
—Neal Lemery, 1/2014
“Until you heal the wounds of your past, you are going to bleed. You can bandage the bleeding with food, with alcohol, with drugs, with work, with cigarettes, with sex; but eventually, it will all ooze through and stain your life. You must find the strength to open the wounds, stick your hands inside, pull out the core of the pain that is holding you in your past, the memories and make peace with them.”
—-Iyanla Vanzant
Today, I am healing from surgery, from lasers cutting eyelid skin, sutures lifting and resizing my eyelids, restoring my peripheral vision. I am healing so that I can experience the world in a richer, more complete way.
This morning, I walked down the lane, greeting the early morning sky with a new enthusiasm, with literally a new vision of the new day. I am re-experiencing the miracle of sight, and of experiencing the world.
Now, my task is to heal. I rest, I sleep, I eat healthy foods, I manage my pain, and I tend to my wounds. All of my day’s tasks is focused on my healing from my surgery. Time is on my side, as I rest and heal, and do the work that is needed to do to recover, to take care of my body, and to celebrate the precious gift of sight.
As I lay back, ice pack on my eyes, letting the cold sink into the skin, into my head, into the wounds, I let the miracle of the cold bring fresh blood to the wounds, more nutrients, more of my life force. My nature is to seek warm, to be comforted by heat, to soak up the sun and bask in the cozy comfort of my bed, reveling in the last bit of drowziness before my day begins.
Yet, it is the cold, the adversity, that brings the healing. To be tested, to be on the edge, and to have to struggle a bit, against the cold, that makes my body stronger, that brings the healing energies I need.
This process is a metaphor of my struggles as a man, to be able to see my wounds, and to take the steps I need to heal, and to be a complete, whole man.
As I grew up, and as I lived through childhood, teenage life, adolescence, and young adulthood, I was wounded. I struggled, and my questions of who I was and what I was all about were unanswered, even mocked, ridiculed. I faced violence, indifference, degradation, and falsehoods. I was led into the wilderness, and then laughed at when I became lost, uncertain as to where I should walk to find my future, my sense of place, my sense of being in this world.
Love of self, and love of others remained a mystery to me, and I was left in the cold, unsure of who I was, unsure of what my role in this world was to be. I was lost and needed to be found, and to find myself.
Those wounds did not bleed like the wounds on my eyes this week. Those wounds were not so easily treated, with sutures, and salves, and the healing powers and potions of my surgeons and nurses. Those wounds were not easily cleansed by sleep, and food, and the loving care of my family.
Yet, those wounds were the most painful, and the most dehumanizing. I was led to believe they did not exist, yet they were the most infectious, the most unnerving, the hardest to treat.
Other men embraced me, encouraging me to push my shoulders back, to open my eyes, and embrace these wounds, and to embrace the challenges of becoming a whole man, a healthy man, a man who has his place in the world, and a destiny to fulfill.
Yes, I am a good person, I am a child of God, I am healthy, and strong, and I have purpose in my life. I have a place in this planet, and I am valued. I am important, and capable of fulfilling my destiny.
I have work to do. I have missions to accomplish. I have tasks to complete, and I am called to be a citizen of the world, and to do good in my life. And, in preparing for that work, in undertaking that work, I must tend to my wounds, and I must do the healing that is needed in order to be healthy, to be strong.
Real health, and real strength comes from embracing my manhood, from seeing my wounds, and treating them. It is my task to open them, and let the pus and infection drain away, and then it is time for the healing. I have a duty to heal, and to give time to myself to be tender with myself, to clean the infection, and to medicate myself with unconditional love and understanding, with acceptance, and with a friendship with God, so that I become healed.
Others helped me. Others showed me the paths to take, and the medications to use. Others offered advice and direction, and comfort. But, most of all, they offered me unconditional love and acceptance, of who I was, and who I was becoming. They accepted me on my journey, and offered support, and kindness, and understanding. They offered patience with me, giving me time to grow, and to heal.
The real work was done deep inside of me. I needed time and confidence, I needed to find my own tools, and to learn how to use them. I needed to go deep, and to connect with God, and to find who I am really am.
I needed to be on my journey, and to take on the leadership that my soul needed to move ahead in life. I am the captain of my ship, and I needed to take the wheel, and to sail through the storms, and to plot my course to the safe harbors. Yet, I needed to be tested and to discover, for myself, that I am strong, that I am capable, that I am filled with love, and that, if I put my soul into a struggle, then I will succeed, and I will find my destiny.
Today, I heal. Today, I move on, learning, accepting, meeting the challenges of today. Today, I embrace my manhood, my humanity, my cloak of being a child of God. I am loved, and I am loving. I know my destiny.
—-Neal Lemery, 2/21/2014
Taking Flight
Young eagle in flight,
soaring on the last of the storm winds,
the end of the hurricane that shook his soul,
that darkness testing his manhood to his sweet core.
Today’s sun rises bright, fresh with promise,
of all his possibilities, all of his hopes;
challenges push and pull,
testing his heart, his young wings.
He looks deep into his heart, finding his direction,
and faces life head-on, confident in
direction, rich in determination,
rich in possibilities and well-chosen dreams.
He takes the best from the past,
and plots his course with care;
moves ahead, heart filled with love,
focused, loved, and whole.
Neal Lemery 1/29/2014
Towards Becoming A Complete Person
In the Xhosa culture of South Africa, there is a word, ubuntu. Roughly translated, it is the concept of “a person is a person through other persons”. That is, I am not who I am really meant to be in this life, unless I am in service to, and compassionate towards other persons. It is only through empathy, compassion, and service that I fulfill my mission in this life to God to be whole, to be complete. One’s life is not fulfilled and does not have complete and honest meaning unless one is of service to others, and is fully compassionate.
Desmond Tutu writes of this concept, this essence of culture and humanity, in his book, God is Not A Christian: Speaking Truth in Times of Crisis. (2011).
Much of Western thought is exemplified by Descartes’ maxim, “I think, therefore, I am.” Yet, Archbishop Tutu urges us to think outside of Western thought, and view our lives in terms of “I am because I belong.” We need other human beings to survive, and to find real meaning in our lives.
Each of us is different, and we each have gifts. Our gifts are not the gifts of our neighbors, and our neighbors’ gifts are not ours. In that, we have need for each other.
“Ubuntu speaks of spiritual attributes such as generosity, hospitality, compassion, caring, sharing. You could be affluent in material possession, but still be without ubuntu. This concept speaks of how people are more important than things, than profits, than material possessions. It speaks about the intrinsic worth of people not dependent on extraneous things such as status, race, creed, gender or achievement.” (Tutu, p 22)
In Xhosa culture, ubuntu is cherished and coveted more than anything else. This quality in people distinguishes people from other animals.
Western society has made enormous progress, because of our personal drive and initiative. Yet, there are substantial costs to this “progress”. People are lonely, and there is an obsession with achievement and success. Such a culture views failure as a personal, even moral, disaster. We tend to not forgive and to accept people who have “failed” in the eyes of society.
Such a culture does not give much value to forgiveness and compassion. We tend to not understand suffering, or to identify with people who are suffering, including ourselves. In that experience and view, we risk becoming less human, less fulfilled.
In other cultures, such as the Maori of New Zealand, and Aborigines in Australia, each person is highly valued, and each person has a a clear identity and role in their culture. Everyone has value, and everyone’s participation in society has a cherished value in that society. Everyone is worthy, and everyone has a story to tell.
Indeed, we are here so that we can tell our story, and the story of our people. In that story is the connection with others, with living our lives with and through other people. And, as we go about our lives, we are in service to and living for the benefit of others. Compassion and forgiveness, rehabilitation, and acceptance, are all strong and cherished values. In life, we are here to help others connect with God, with their people, and with the stories of our brothers and sisters, our neighbors, and with the world. We are interconnected, and in that interconnectedness, there is love and purpose.
Not that the Xhosa, the Maori, or the Aborigines have perfect, ideal cultures, and not that they are always happy and fulfilled. Like any people, they have their problems, and their stresses, as well as their struggles and deep questions. Yet, they have a strong sense of community and they deeply value every member. Everyone has a role to play, and a mission in their lives to serve others, to be a part of the greater whole.
Forgiveness is a challenging topic. Contemplating true forgiveness, for me, is often a struggle and a dilemma. I do not find easy answers and easy solutions to the hard questions and the difficult anxieties and challenges I have about many things.
Yet, if I approach my wrestling matches with a sense of Ubuntu, and passion towards finding forgiveness deep inside of my soul, then I can see that much of my struggles are eased, and that there is a way out of the wilderness, and that I am moving forward on my path to trying to live better, to live more honestly. The burdens I have are lifted a bit, and I can see a glimmer of the Light ahead in my journey.
Neal Lemery
2/9/2014
23
is a number, prime,
the times you’ve flown around the sun,
becoming your own private history,
the foundation of your house,
the footprints on the beach,
telling you where you’ve been,
the direction you took to get here,
preparing you for your next step,
your next place you’re headed to.
From here, all things are possible,
all dreams can be yours to hold in your hand,
all can be what you make of it.
What lies behind you is only behind you,
what matters is what lies ahead,
the footsteps on your beach are
yours to make,
fresh, clean,
unlimited.
Adding to 23, a day at a time,
soon, another year, two, five,
the beach walk longer,
richer in every sunrise,
Every new breath.
23 doubled, tripled, even times four, or more,
your life just now beginning to see what you plant,
what you are even now harvesting,
what you plant for the generations to come,
for them to see who you were,
what you dreamed.
23, a number,
23, only a bit of infinity,
of your possibilities.
Neal Lemery, 1/29/2014
A new, strong day, being with a young man’s first day of freedom, after seven years of prison. He, bravely stepping out, moving on, as he sees the ocean for the first time in a third of his life.
We stop to pray in the forest, me blessing him, asking God to let him move ahead, now free and clean of past teenaged mistakes, to move on, being healed, forgiven, loved. We find no words to speak, only hugs tell our feelings, the winter quiet catching my tears.
We journey five hours, back in time, but also new possibilities, back to his roots, him ready for a new start, new beginnings. We marvel at geese overhead, sunlight on the beach, possibilities of work, new friends, life without walls, anything being the dreams he has.
Hope, love, forgiveness now real words, real potential of his tomorrow. He steps away from me, one last hug telling me he is ready, now, to really fly, my young eagle.
I leave him, all his possessions at his feet, in the new rain, halfway house a big first stop on this, his first day of freedom.
Young eagle, wings outspread, flaps slowly forward, leaving me, wet cheeked, driving away, now alone, me, a witness today, to courage.
The Gratitude Jar
Tonight, New Year’s Eve, my wife and I will make a new Gratitude Jar, and place it on top of the refrigerator, next to some note paper and a pen. And, as 2014 unfolds, we will each take time to jot down an event, a gratitude, something that brightens the day.
And, as the year progresses, the pile of notes will grow. Last year’s quart Mason jar proved to be too small for the abundance of good things that came into our life, so this year, we are moving up, finding a bigger jar to hold our jottings of happiness and delight in our lives.
Around Thanksgiving, we will open the jar and make a list of the events, big and small, the memorable, and the nearly forgotten, and find, once again, that we are so very rich in abundance of the gratitude that is ever-present in our lives.
“Cultivate the habit of being grateful for every good thing that comes to you, and to give thanks continuously. And because all things have contributed to your advancement, you should include all things in your gratitude.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson
I need to be reminded of the richness and the blessings in life.
On Christmas, my wife and I visited one of our young men in prison. Of all my friends, he’s the one who enjoys Christmas the most, especially the anticipation, the expectation, and the promise of a happy time, a brighter tomorrow.
After five and a half years in prison, his spirit is brighter now that it’s ever been. He’s grown in so many ways, and achieved many of his goals. In prison, he’s actually had goals and found ways to achieve them. Before that, life was just survival, slogging through chaos and drugs, of being treated indifferently, without love, and not knowing who he was or where he was headed.
Now, he’s found purpose and meaning. He’s making peace with the demons in his life, and has found the strength and courage to look deep inside of himself, and to finally love himself, and all the possibilities he has in his life.
He wanted socks for Christmas, making sure everyone knew it, too. Now, he’s a wealthy man, Mr. Big in the world of socks. He’s the happy recipient of forty pairs of socks, socks of nearly every size and color. He has socks everywhere now, new socks to try on every day for over a month.
Yes, he had a successful Christmas, all the socks he could ever want. In the telling of his story, his laugh and his big smile light up his face; he knows now that he is loved and respected by so many people. He’s figured out the magic of Christmas, the reason for the season.
He’s successful in so many other ways this year. He’s taken charge of his life, looking deep inside of himself, and taking charge of who he is, and where he is going. He’s embraced his new maturity. He’s taken on his self confidence and is moving ahead. He’s found his courage and is nourishing and loving his soul.
He’s the person Robert Louis Stevenson was writing about when he said,
“That man is successful who has lived well, laughed often, and loved much, who has gained the respect of the intelligent men and the love of children; who has filled his niche and accomplished his task; who leaves the world better than he found it, whether by an improved poppy, a perfect poem, or a rescued soul; who never lacked appreciation of earth’s beauty or failed to express it; who looked for the best in others and gave the best he had.” ~Robert Louis Stevenson
This year, many people I know have taken stock of their lives, summoned their courage, and moved ahead. Their accomplishments are many, and I’ve been applauding their journeys, and marveling at their determination and sacred intentions in their lives. It has been a year of transformation and a year of dramatic and momentous growth. Old demons have been called out of the basement, new directions has been set, and the tough, sweaty and hard work has been done. And, in that work, our communities are stronger, more vibrant, richer in so many ways.
Some people look to Washington politicians to make the big changes they want to see in the world and in their lives. Yet, the real change and the real work is done right here, inside my friends and neighbors, the farmer, the waitress, the young man in prison. The real change makers are right here, and the work is getting done. People are becoming transformed, people making a real difference.
Like my young friend in prison, people are taking inventory of who they are inside, and grasping the power they have to change. And, then, they are stepping out, and doing the hard, gut level work, and moving ahead.
They see the richness in their lives, not by the number of socks they got for Christmas, but in the way they love and are loved.
I don’t know what to say, or even think. A friend of mine has gone, at a time and place and manner of his own choosing. He left, not saying good bye, not asking for help with his pain, his choices. But, then again, maybe he did, and we did not listen, or did not respond to what he asked. At least, I did not hear him asking for a hand, or my ear, or even considering other choices. Or, maybe I did. And now, I do not know. I am, at the least, confused and lost, and stumbling around in my grief, my impotence.
Now, there is an emptiness, and a great unknowing. The “what ifs” keep multiplying, and I am left with wonder, with sadness, and guilt. “What if?” “What if?”
And, in the silence that follows my asking, there are no answers, only more questions.
Friends of mine, closer to him that I was, are left empty, unknowing, wandering in the wilderness of uncertainty, of deeper questions which have no answers today. My pain today is enough; I cannot imagine theirs.
I search for answers that are not there. I search for so much, for reasons, for explanations, for understandings, knowing that there is now only a cold wind blowing around my heart.
Raw craziness, that is what is running amuck in my life now. No answers, just more questions. Not much solace, yet knowing that my friend was, at least for a second, at peace with himself and what he was doing.
I was not on his road of life, and I did not know his journey. In his departing, there is even more uncertainty in my mind as to what I might have known, might have done, might have loved him deeper, had he shared his pain, his questions, his journey. But, he did not, and somehow I must accept that. Yet, in that, I find myself angry, and unknowing, and uncertain. I am confused, and enraged, yet what has been done was beyond what I could have done, and beyond what I am, and what I could have been to him.
Old pains, and other suicides, and those still unanswered questions come back now, again reminding me of old wounds, unresolved enigmas, old doubts and tears. I do not know. I didn’t know then, and I still don’t know. Old stuff, reopened, bleeding again, making new tears.
Part of me wants answers, but I know that answers won’t ever come. I move on, in life, yet I am left with wonderment, and enigma, and cold winds, ice in my heart that comes at unforeseen, strange times, dragging me back to old ghosts and old, unresolved times.
The poet writes of what I feel, and points me towards forgiveness. Yet, that word seems foreign to where I sit now, empty and alone, not knowing, not finding sanity in all of this. The poet’s wisdom circles about me, aflame, trying to warm my cold, lonely heart.
Perhaps, I should reach out, and accept that warmth, on this cold winter’s night.
Forgiveness
By Marion Waterston, January 31, 2005
I guess I’ll never know
All I want to know
Or understand
What can’t be understood
But I believe it’s time to forgive
Time to forgive you for leaving me
So abruptly and so painfully
And time to forgive myself
For talks we didn’t have
Laughs we didn’t share
Songs we didn’t sing
Foolishly I thought that time was on our side
Can it be that time now wishes to atone for this betrayal
For tears no longer flow like endless rivers
Anger seems a wasted emotion
And dreams those dreaded night-time visitors
Can come as friends
Once again I smile at the innocence of children
The unabashed warmth of lovers
The enthusiastic affection of dogs
And although I do not see you my precious love
You are with me
So I guess I’ll never know
All I want to know
Or understand
What can’t be understood
But here in this quiet moment
It’s time and I’m ready
To forgive.
Talking, again, with Tommy Boye at TillamookCow.com, Tillamook’s internet radio, on December 5, 2013. Here the whole show, including Neal reading his latest poem, Cold Morning Walk…
tommy-neal_7478″ title=”Neal on Tillamook Cow, December 5, 2013″>http://www.podcastgarden.com/episode/0033-tommy-neal_7478
Neal Lemery 