Stories and Time: A Gift

The item below was originally written in August of 2008. I had been recently laid off from my work at the time and was asked to deliver a "message" to the Unitarian Universalist Society in Iowa City. it was also during the time when Iowa City had been flooded and cleanup was underway. I thought I'd share it for all who care to read it. You may find yourself in part of my story or perhaps not. Stories and time are all we have to share with each other that count. I hope to make my moments count. ~ Garry Klein

 

What a Long, Strange Trip It's Been...So Far

 

On enlightenment in life and all it entails some relatively modern sages wrote, “Sometime’s the light’s all shinin’on me, other times I can barely see, lately it occurs to me, what a long,strange trip its been.” and I’ll add…so far.

After listening to Cliff Missen’s reflection, I too feel like a fraud of a sort. As some of you know, I have been out of a job since May, so I mean, really, what can anyone learn about life’s work from a person who isn’t working?

 But know this, it is my opinion that we are all more than a job and I’m doing my life’s work every day. Because living passionately… it’s not about the job we go to or what we used to do before we retired, or had a child, or an accident, or what we have to do as a result of a divorce, or when a business goes belly up or our home floods. It is about what Ralph Waldo Emerson said, “To laugh often and much; to win the respect of intelligent people and the affection of children; to earn the appreciation of honest critics and endure the betrayal of false friends; to appreciate beauty, to find the best in others; to leave the world a bit better, whether by a healthy child, a garden patch or a redeemed social condition; to know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived. This is to have succeeded. And it is what we all can do, if we are not afraid to try.

 I honor people who have life-altering events befall them. Certainly being laid-off pales in comparison to grave illness and other life tragedies--important lessons are learned along the way, no matter what our stories.

 How many of you are familiar with Professor Randy Pausch, who gave “The Last Lecture” at Carnegie-Mellon? He died at the age of 47 from widespread cancer. The lecture (which he gave to a packed house) was recorded for a few friends who couldn’t come in person, but has been subsequently seen by well over 10 million people on YouTube. He said after it was over, “the talk’s not for you, it’s for my kids.” Since I don’t have kids, this talk is for Betsy and our dogs Yin and Yang and our cat Tulsa. And, since I plan to be around a long time, it can be for you, if you can find something of value for you in it.

 For me, life’s work has always been about doing something to be of service to others, and probably is the thing that brought me to Unitarian Universalism, where service to others is one of our guiding principles.

The kinds of things I’ve always done were meant to help others in different ways: conducting research, training sales people, selling shoes, counseling, performing stand-up comedy, bussing tables, mowing grass, and delivering newspapers; they are different, but really not that distant of cousins when I reflect back.

The things I did as a young boy and a young man and what I do today differ in one very important way--intentionality. The work I choose to do, the hobbies I have, the things I value, are all products of what gives meaning to my life—what makes me feel good to be here. It is done with thought of what I want to accomplish. So, with intentionality, I try to only do things that make a difference—whether they actually do or not, well as we all know, time and circumstances decide.

Sometimes, the road to feeling good travels through the things that make you feel not so good. When I ran for city council a few years ago, few really knew how bitterly disappointed I was by the experience. Not being elected was marginally disappointing, when compared to balancing a job, a good marriage—it made campaigning for office extremely stressful. However, feeling like I let down others who wanted what I wanted was the hardest lesson. I don't like to let people down and I felt miserable for a long time about that. Through it, though, I learned to love better, rethink priorities I had in life, and find a way to be of service that fit better with the time I have—now.

And speaking of now, I have come to call this time away from employment as my “sabbatical”. Sabbatical comes from Greek sabbatikos: a day of rest and spiritual enrichment, a period so important that the third commandment in the top ten list is to keep the Sabbath holy. But a sabbatical is also a prolonged hiatus in the career of an individual taken in order to fulfill some goal, e.g., writing a book or traveling extensively for research.

And I am working hard on my sabbatical. After delivering a paper at a national conference to a whopping crowd of four people (about advocacy, no less), I recently visited friends in Tennessee. There I learned about group dynamics from chickens. When you open a chicken house door and allow chickens to run free, half go one way and half the other. Not unlike Unitarians, come to think of it. Then they come together in the middle. Then they look for food, fight, and/or have chicken sex.

I have had time to spend a few hours in my mother’s garden. I had forgotten about how healing those times were to talk about the future while pulling weeds.

I have helped sandbag and clean up after the flooding. I deliver food every Friday to people and places that help people to get back on their feet. In some ways, these have been the best jobs I have ever had… so far.

Mainly, I’ve been following the advice of e.e. cummings “to be nobody but yourself in a world which is doing its best night and day to make you like everybody else means to fight the hardest battle any human being can fight and never stop fighting.”

Back to Randy Pausch for a second. He said in an interview with Diane Sawyer, “Don’t tell people how to live, just tell them stories.” So I’ll tell you one of my favorite life’s work stories.

Every so often we have a chance to recognize what is not right about the way the world works. Often, we keep it to ourselves or feel helpless to do anything about it. But once in a while, we are compelled to do something about it, no matter what. This is when the creative muse comes a callin’.

Some years ago while Betsy and I lived in Corpus Christi, Texas, we enjoyed strolling along the beaches near Port Aransas on the Gulf of Mexico. We were often saddened to see “ocean trash” as it was called that washed up on the beach from the oil tankers, frigates, and other ships that dump their garbage overboard. Things like light bulbs, milk jugs, clothing, and hypodermic needles from all over the world—rolled up on the beach with the casualness of Atlantic seaweed.

One Sunday afternoon while walking a stretch of the sun-washed beach, a particular favorite of ours, we saw a hundred or so fluorescent-orange mesh sacks that are intended for storing fifty pounds of vegetables splayed like beached jellyfish on the shore.

I was sickened and angered at a primal level, though, even today, I can’t tell you exactly why; certainly I’d been able to ignore a lot of other trash in the past. But on this day, I scrambled up the beach like a mad man picking up every mesh bag emblazoned with “Mister Señor Onions”—the picture of a toothy, smiling, mustachioed sombrero-wearing onion gazing warmly upward at me.” Betsy began to help me, out of a sense, I suppose, that not enough canvas was covering the ol’ mental circus! 

When we got home with our car’s trunk full of the rank, sandy onion bags, I thought “now what?” Was I going to transfer them to the trash so that they could lay in a landfill for the next thousand years? No, I decided these bags from Castroville, California needed to go back to their home. So I put them in a cardboard box, addressed them to “Mister Señor” in Castroville California. Enclosed in the box I included a short note that said “I believe these belong to you.” Then I mailed them. It felt incredibly good!

As a result of this experience, I applied the principle to other unwanted trash that came into my purview. For example, sometimes when I receive unsolicited junk mail, I send it back in the postage-paid envelope with “I believe this belongs to you” written by hand on it. I have been known to bring in a cup from one of the many fast food restaurants in the world and when asked if I’d like to “order”, I give the worker the cup and say “I believe this belongs to you.” As embarrassing as it is to my wife or odd it is the worker or the person opening the mail, it is all part of my dream.

 I dream that, at first, a few “weirdos” like me will follow my lead. Corporate mail centers across the country will receive these “care” packages and wonder “what’s the deal?” I imagine a news service picking up a small story about this “campaign” and using it as filler on a slow news day. Then I visualize hundreds of people reading the story and thinking “Yeah—great idea!” and doing the same thing. Then I imagine companies coming under siege by all the garbage they produce and thinking, “this is costing us a fortune—both to make it and get rid of it. Maybe we could do something different.”

My dream ends by everyday people realizing that we all have something to say about the stuff we use and taking responsible steps to reduce waste, reuse materials, and recycle. As the sun goes down in my dream, Betsy and I are walking down a beach with nothing on it except strands of seaweed, some jellyfish, a few hurried sandpipers, and perhaps a pelican or two. Beautiful malachite green waves are rolling in, as the sun extinguishes itself in the ocean for the night.

I believe in dreams and that too is part of my life’s work. To make dreams come true.

"Reach out your hand if your cup be empty
If your cup is full, may it be again.
Let it be known, there is a fountain
That was not made by the hands of man.

There is a road, no simple highway
Between the dawn and the dark of night.
And if you go, no one may follow
That path is for your steps alone."

 (From “Ripple” by the Grateful Dead)