For the Time – Being

January 1, 1984
Lakeland

The calendar informs us that this is a new year, 1984. We pin up the new calendars. We think back and look forward. There will be holidays and birthdays. Yet these dates are what humans impose on this strange experience of time. Einstein stated that time is relative, but few of [us] understand the science of physics sufficiently to know exactly what that means.

We sense, however, that beyond calendars and clocks, time is not only the accumulation of wrinkles and pain in the joints, but also an experience of the joyous and the sad, the hopeful and the gloomy, the exciting and the boring, the living and the dying.

W.H. Auden in his Christmas oratorio, “For The Time Being,” has the narrator say in the closing (read p. 21)

For the moment, reflect not on having, not on doing, but on Being. Reflect, I and Thou, on a world where, as Auden wrote, “everything became a You and nothing was an It.”

As we sing #48, the words of Ecclesiastes, to Pete Seeger’s music, “Turn, Turn, Turn,” think of Being in the experiences of living described so gently but so fully. (song 48)

The late Rene Dubos, scientist, Pulitzer Prize winner for his book SO HUMAN AN ANIMAL, wrote in another book, A GOD WITHIN, (read p. 10-11)

Who are you? Who am I? What is the depth of being, the reach of self that is you, that is “I,” waiting to be released? Who hides in you? Can we, for the time being, cut away the labels that society and ourselves have tagged us (scientist, teacher, homemaker, physician, lawyer, manager, minister, carpenter, technician, ...). When I was young, I had a friend who was old and wise, even though unlettered. When we met, his greeting was never “How are you” or “How are you doing” but “How you be?” Beneath the layers of roles and goals, how you be? Trust the Being that is hidden in the unsculptured self.

That is too simply stated, for it is the most arduous task of human Being. The late Abraham Maslow, in his TOWARD A PSYCHOLOGY OF BEING, has a chapter, “The Need to Know and the Fear of Knowing,” and begins (read p. 57)

To be completely honest with oneself is the very best effort a human being can make, yet it is a painful experience. We animate creatures are pain-avoiding as much as we can.

A cat does not jump on a hot stove more than once, or even a cold one after the first experience of pain. But the fear of knowing when we need to know can breed more prolonged distress. The modern poet, Elder Olson, has a quatrain, “Dark Day”:

“Sick, battered, and defeated, home I came
And sat and stared with envy at the clock
For which days dark or bright are all the same,
And every moment is mere tick or tock”

Was not the poet suggesting the cost of the denial of Being?

To be for the first time, for the time of our lives, requires that we recognize and accept that we have been afraid, but that our self-esteem will be enhanced, not destroyed, by self-knowledge. The Adam and Eve myth that taught that the Tree of Knowledge was dangerous failed to emphasize that lack of knowledge, particularly of self, was more destructive. When I audit my buried journal of rascal emotions, look at them squarely, admit that “they’re a fine kettle of fish” and forgive myself, then I have at least begun the process of “being.”

Let us sing together #22, “All The Thoughts That We Have Had, this is what we are”

offertory

“For The Time Being” has other dimensions. Wallace Stevens, in his poem, “The Man With the Blue Guitar” (p. 165)

“Things as they are, are changed in the Blue Guitar.” Wallace Stevens, like most good poets, does not say 1,2,3, exactly what he means. We read into the imagery that which resonates in our search for meaning. It occurred to me as I thought upon these lines that almost always we can substitute the word “change” for the word “time.” Calendar, clock, sundial, in all human experience, time is change. Every moment changes and extends our personal history. We do not always let change penetrate into our being. We resist. Nevertheless, change is Being, too. As the poet suggests, “But play, you must, a time beyond us, yet ourselves.” Every moment of change calls us to BE, even though change is the inevitable chord on life’s blue guitar.

There is still another dimension of being suggested by Erich Fromm (p. 88-89), TO HAVE OR TO BE.

This blue light can symbolize the highest quality of Being. Not what we retain, but what we give out. If I understand Maslow, this quality is the apex of self-actualization. By giving out, I do not mean the checks we write for worthy causes, essential as these are to the implementation of ideals. The blue light is basic confidence that we can reach out beyond egocentricity to share our love and care, authentically to be generous and accepting of others. To ignore or overcome our wounded vanity. To be aware and self-actualized in our Being sufficient not to be threatened by differences or fearful of disagreements. To let such a light shine not only illuminates a little bit of outer darkness but also glows in our Being.

In that spirit, let us sing #169. (“Life Is The Greatest Gift Of All”)

Just about here, I began to wonder if I had departed from the world as it is. This world where we fear the shadow of war, where we doubt there is enough humane power to remedy the catalog of miseries. So, [in] a differing note I want to share these lines from one of my favorite poets, John Ciardi, and his poem “New Year’s Eve” (written in the 60s). (read p. 61)

Ciardi sounds cynical and world-weary, does he not? But was his New Year’s Eve strikingly different than last night? Bitter about war, cynical about the military, jaundiced about government. But perhaps because I have read these lines many times, I sense his dogged hope that maybe we, the human species, will come to ourselves and not self-destruct. “Let in all mercies,” it won’t be quite a flood for a long day. Acknowledgment, acceptance, realism, even disgust, are in his lines. These feelings in more or less degrees we share if we are aware. To be in this time is [to] face the sad and fearful events even when they cut sharply like an unaccustomed frosty wind in Florida. But who can live without hope?

For the time – Being – to be in a fuller sense calls us to respond to:

Who are you?
Who hides in you?

To recognize the Need to Know and the Fear of Knowing
To let the light of our being shine in the world
To embrace change for time is change
To try to live so that everyone is a Thou and no one an It
Such are the ways of Being – in Time

T.S. Eliot, with poetic compression and comprehension, sums up:

“We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time.”

Our closing hymn, #105 (“All Hail The Pageant Of The Year”)