We Make Our Plans, Then a Great Wind Comes, Part 2
Patty O’Shea
June 27, 2010
In certain regions of the world, there are seasonal winds that blow--dry persistent winds, predictable in
the conditions that create them, but unpredictable in their effect on human behavior. Or so I have
read. The Foehn in Switzerland, the Sirocco in Italy, the Mistral Winds in Southern France, the Santa
Ana Winds in California, the Hamsin in Israel.--These winds are legendary, winds which purportedly
can cause feelings of anxiety, depression, sleepless nights, winds which, if you talk to hospital
personnel in these areas, cause nurses and orderlies to gear up for the onslaught of the unexpected.
The wind, the invisible element which can bring anything from total devastation to cool crystal clear
days, has been for me a lifelong metaphor and a harbinger of change. I am one of those people
weirdly excited by storms. I often sit outside and watch a good storm cell blow in, going indoors only
when it begins to feel unsafe. I have had storm dreams every couple months, quarterly maybe, for
most of my adult life, dreams in which I cannot seem to get windows or doors closed before the rain or
wind or snow overtake, dreams in which an angry sea threatens to swallow me up . I awake, glad I am
safe, but unsure of what new thing is afoot. The more actual, precipitous changes I experience in my
life, the more I am convinced that there are skills, perceptions, gifts, perspectives which we develop
over a lifetime that inform our reactions and responses to the winds of change, and that help to
determine whether we, in the words of Kathleen Brehony, become bitter or better when the winds of
adversity enter our lives. Brehony, author of After the Darkest Hour, wonders, "Why is it that some
people see blessings even in the darkest times? Why is it that they seem to be able to use their
experiences of pain, suffering, and loss to become better people? Like a refiner's fire, these dark
times seem to catapult them into higher levels of consciousness. They become stronger, wiser, more
compassionate..."
In 2006 I began a formal exploration of how people navigate the winds of change and the sermon "
We Make Our Plans, Then a Great Wind Comes' was born. The foundational skills, perceptions, and
gifts that seemed to best explain what grounds people in the face of great winds at the time seemed
to me to be:
faith in something larger than ourselves or transcendent,
hope that to navigate this life has value and worth, and
love and connection to others.
Faith, Hope, and Love. Proving once again that you can take the girl out of the Catholic School, but
you cannot take the Catholic School out of the girl.. But that's ok. What better distillation of lessons
learned at the feet of the nuns and priests than Faith, Hope, and Love? These have served me well,
and they continue to ground me.
Our learning is lifelong, however, and in the four years since I wrote that original sermon, I have
continued to consider what else it is that grounds people when the winds of change blow. I have seen,
in these past four years as a hospice chaplain, people with such amazing resilience in the face of
adversity One such was a patient only a few years older than I, whose neuromuscular disease began
in her mid-twenties, and who, in the two and a half years I knew her went from being able to
ambulate, eat, talk, and show deep emotion to being bed-bound, on a feeding tube, unable to speak
except for single syllables. She remained totally emotionally and cognitively intact. and her eyes
brightened, she laughed and/or cried when her hospice team members came to visit (laughing
because she was happy to see us/ crying because she was happy to see us, still imbued with the full
spectrum of human emotions and the seemingly but not actually opposite ways of expressing them)
She laughed heartily as we read to her novels of her choosing, especially at the passages peppered
with swear words, and she cried when a romance ended or a character died tragically. She somehow
found a way to remain fully alive until the moment of her death. She found a way for her essence to
impact each and every person who met her. This sermon is dedicated to her and to all of you who
have learned amazing ways to weather the changes in your lives.
My own experienced adversity, coupled with what I witness each day of people facing the great wind
of change head on has helped to broaden my perspective. Perhaps I will re-write this sermon every
four years for the rest of my life, each time adding new elements, because everywhere I look I see
inspirational people becoming better as the winds of change blow. But for today, not forgetting that
faith, hope and love were where we began, I challenge us to move on to three more concepts that
may also help to explain resilience and the ability to survive and thrive when the great winds come.
Today I would like us to consider the concepts of: neutrality, perspective, and allowing everything.
Let's begin with neutrality. Consider this parable:
A Chinese farmer gets a horse, which soon runs away. A neighbor says, "That's bad news." The
farmer replies, "Good news, bad news, who can say?"
The horse comes back and brings another horse with him. Good news, you might say.
The farmer gives the second horse to his son, who rides it, then is thrown and badly breaks his leg.
"So sorry for your bad news," says the concerned neighbor. "Good news, bad news, who can say?"
the farmer replies.
In a week or so, the emperor's men come and take every able-bodied young man to fight in a war.
The farmer's son is spared.
We learn in this parable that evaluating the goodness or badness of the news in each case is not how
the farmer chooses to expend his energy. He sees each event as simply "something that is
happening." The wise person, I believe, saves her finite energy stores for responding to the events in
her life. In each case in the parable, by the time the neighbor has finished evaluating whether the
news is good or bad, some other NEUTRAL event has occurred which has potentially changed the
course of future events.
In my work, I meet people who, knowing that I am heave listening ear, use their time to tell me litanies
of all the awful things that have happened to them in their lives. Each day, each moment, is an
opportunity for them to add to that list. And each day they DO add to the list. Now I am not going to
suggest that these folks create their own reality, as is suggested in some literature . I am not entirely
sure of that, and that is a subject for another time. What I will suggest is that they have not mastered
the art of neutrality (and, for the record, neither have I) They often see themselves as victims of
events. Their mantra is "Why me?" I meet other folks who are able to take life more from the neutral
perspective and who might say "Why not me?" They refrain from taking events personally. Like the
Chinese farmer, they save their energy for living the life that is unfolding before them.
I have begun to look at the events in my life and in the lives of others. I realize what happens is pretty
much random, things can change in an instant, and suffering is exacerbated when we brace against
the change. I will lose more loved ones, things in my life may not turn out as I hope, I will die
someday. But also, I have wonderful loved ones and friends, the sun shines often, and I am able to do
my heart's desire more days than not.
I sat vigil with a family this week whose mother was dying. I had only met her the week before, and
her disease had taken a sharp turn, and the family was reeling with the idea of her imminent death.
They had thought they had more time. We all did. But, somehow they found a way to regroup, to be
totally present to this woman and to their sense of what was happening. They approached the
unexpected disease exacerbation with neutrality. They did not lament "Why us?" Instead they were
fully present to their mom and her needs.
Neutrality is different from ambivalence and it is different from apathy. You can practice neutrality
when you care deeply and passionately about something. It is a choice and a skill to refrain from
assuming facts not in evidence. I am not getting this news about the death of a loved one of mine
because God is mad at me or wishes for me to suffer. I am getting this news about the death of a
loved one because she has died.
Neutrality helps us understand that job, two point two children, a well-appointed home and a nice car
does not necessarily mean good just as layoff, serious illness, clinical depression does not
necessarily mean bad. Philosopher Albert Camus said, "In the depth of winter I finally learned that
there was in me an invincible summer." Allowing the winter and the summer to co-exist is the
cornerstone of neutrality.
The next thing I would like to look at is the idea of perspective. This can best be illustrated by a story
that I am going to attribute solely to Dr. Robert Wicks, author, professor, and gifted speaker, even
though I am re-creating his story only from memory, and therefore probably unwittingly changing
many of the actual events. The point will still be made.
Dr. Wicks tells of his daughter who is away at college. He travels abroad extensively, and had not
been in touch with his daughter for a couple months. He received a letter from her and began to read.
"Dear Dad, Hope this letter finds you well. I just wanted to let you know that things have changed a
little around here. I met a wonderful boy named Igor. He is in rehab and is finally getting used to the
side-effects of methadone. He is only sleeping about 12 hours a day now. We have high hopes that
he can get back to his grunge-band gigs just as soon as his probation is over. I have decided that my
time would be better spent taking on a job and dropping out of college for now. I am working double
shifts at a local diner. It is in a pretty bad neighborhood, but don't worry. The cops are always nearby
because of all the drug dealing, so I feel pretty safe. I am learning how to play electric guitar from Igor,
and recently dyed my hair black with blue streaks, to match the awesome tattoo which you will be able
to see as soon as the infection clears. Igor is wonderful and I know you will love him. Well, gotta go,
Daddy. The timer just rang. I need to check the results of the pregnancy test. Love, Rachel"
Stunned, Dr Wicks turned over the letter, and found this.
"Dear Dad,
Sorry to startle you. Now, Daddy, you know I don't like grunge and you know how frightened I am of
needles. I would never get a tattoo. And black hair with my sallow complexion? Please! My real
boyfriend is named Michael and he is a pre-med student. We only get together on weekends because
he studies all the time. I have made many new friends and have joined a book group. I look forward to
the holidays and hope you are getting enough rest. I need to get to the library to study. Love, Rachel
PS, Just to let you know, I flunked bio-chemistry."
Perspective. Sometimes it is gained for us, like it was for Dr. Wicks in this letter. He might have
reacted very differently to his daughter's failure of biochemistry without the ruse. As a post-script to
what could have been, he is thrown into the reverie of counting his blessings. Sometimes, we can
change our own perspective. I see people doing it all the time. I see the fifty year old man with lung
cancer who tells me he is content because he will probably be alive long enough to see the birth of his
first grandbaby, the co-worker whose two-year-old has undergone dozens of surgeries for birth
deformities who celebrates each milestone in her life just like she celebrates the milestones of her
other child, the friend who lost her job and used it as a spring-board for something new and
courageous. We have the power to simply turn our heads the slightest bit to the left (or right) and see
a completely different panorama.
Finally, let's take a look at the idea of allowing everything.
I had the great honor of meeting Frank Ostaseski, who worked at a Zen hospice in California.
He developed five Buddhist-inspired precepts as tools for accompanying the dying, and said they
would have relevance in other
dimensions of life as well, and might offer some inspiration and guidance. He says these precepts are
bottomless practices that can be continually explored and deepened. The one I wish to focus on here
today is the first precept:
"The First Precept: Welcome Everything. Push Away Nothing
In welcoming everything, we don't have to like what's arising. It's actually
not our job to approve or disapprove. It's our task to trust, to listen, and to pay careful attention to the
changing experience. At the deepest level,
we are being asked to cultivate a kind of fearless receptivity.
This is a journey of continuous discovery in which we will always be
entering new territory. We have no idea how it will turn out, and it takes
courage and flexibility. We find a balance. The journey is a mystery we
need to live into, opening, risking, and forgiving constantly."
This is a tricky lesson to learn, because our tendency is to push away that which is unpleasant. But
there are at least two reasons why this does not work. One is that things happen anyways, whether or
not we like them and if we are able to push away or ignore, we miss the lesson being presented to us.
Ben Walkuski told me a story a few weeks ago that I would like to share. Again, I am recalling this
solely from memory, but it is a story with a universal message. Ben was recently speaking with a
priest who told of holding vigil at the bed of a man from his parish who was dying. After a while, the
priest witnessed a look on the man's face, so intent, so inscrutable, as he gazed into the distance the
priest could not help but ask the man, "What it is that you see?" With a look of wonder in his eyes, and
without taking his gaze off the subject of his attention, the man answered, "I see everything!"
Sometimes I think those of us working with people in health and human services are sort of like
rubberneckers at an accident scene, but more in a good way. We are not there to witness the blood
and gore and mangled car, we are there to witness the magic of someone who is in this very moment
glimpsing everything, the same everything some of us see briefly in those mystical God moments in
our lives, the same everything we may see from our death bed some day, or at the birth of our first
child, or the moment we hear of our diagnosis of terminal illness. Push nothing away because there is
that stubborn wind at our back, that will blow it all away in good time anyways, and will blow in
something new to take its place. Push nothing away because if we do, we might miss the opportunity
to learn the lesson that the wind has brought us.
There is a saying, now a bumper sticker, "We Plan; God Laughs". The God in my cosmology would
not laugh at hearing that I had some plan. The God in my cosmology might open his heart with
compassion, like my dear father used to, when he realized that some hard times were on my horizon.
God might brace herself, like my mother used to when I was little and I would run with legs akimbo,
wipeout and skinned knee only seconds away. But my God would not laugh. My God would open her
eyes wide, every color of the rainbow reflecting in the deep pools of wonder and compassion, knowing
that at the end of that rainbow, someday I will see everything.