Find Meaning In The Ordinary
I am a gardener, and have been for a very long time. My father was a landscape architect and site engineer. I grew up in a world of plants, flowers, and trees. As a result, being outside in nature is for me a fundamental element of healthy living, and directly connected to my sense of well being. Using one of my late father’s favorite old Quaker phrases, being outside in nature “speaks to my condition.”
As we, individually and collectively, seek a new normal, I believe we need to go back outside and rediscover the world in which we live. We need to put down our phones, tablets, and laptops, and choose to experience the beauty and awe within nature, reveling in the miraculous changes and elegance found within each season. For when we do this, we rediscover the complete simplicity and complexity of the natural world, and we have the potential to find meaning in the ordinary.
One simple question surfaces during this post pandemic time period: Why did it happen? And this primary question leads to others which are just as important: Why did so many people die? Why did so many people suffer? Why are so many people still suffering? The answers are illusive, painful, and difficult.
Yet, when visiting with a wiser and older friend, she shared with me an uncomfortable truth: “Why has no answer.” The pandemic happened. We experienced it, and we survived it. Many others did not. Seeking an answer to this why question, and many other related why questions, will not generate answers that will help us move forward. What we experienced, individually and collectively, was a defining experience. In essence, it was a source experience.
“The source of knowledge is experience,” writes Albert Einstein. All knowledge comes from experiences that we have in our life. We learn from these experiences which in term shapes our decisions and our actions. In simple terms, our experiences are a form of knowledge as valid and important as anything we learned in school, in a book, or through a podcast.
With this understanding and framework in mind, I return to the world of gardening and see it with a fresh perspective. I have nearly an acre of perennial flower beds growing around our home. I also take care of the other acres of land we own, making sure to maintain the fields and wooded acres in a responsible manner.
I designed and created all these flower beds over many decades. I also have maintained them for many decades. Many people think that most of gardening is about buying new plants and planting them in various places. While this is a special experience, the majority of gardening is about doing the routine seasonal maintenance projects such as cleaning up the beds after winter, spreading mulch in the spring before the plants get too big, pulling weeds, and making sure the more aggressive but beautiful perennials do not take over.
This constant source of work involves lots of time down on one’s hands and knees. I often get the chance to see the whole world at the one foot to two foot high, plant level. Even with the best mulch, an area that has been weeded and cared for will more likely have to be cared for again in a couple of weeks. This continual revisiting of the beds at different times of the day and in different seasons and weather becomes part of the rhythm of gardening. It is a cycle that starts in the early spring and really does not end up long until after the first true snow fall.
I do this level of work because it is good for my soul. I am drawn to it more than being driven by it. I want to do it nine times out of ten And as a result, I find it to be a meditative journey which results in inner peace, alignment, and perspective.
I also enjoy the outcome of this work, which is that lots and lots of people stop by throughout the growing season to witness the beauty and magnificence of blooming plants in and around our home. It makes people smile, laugh, and stand in awe. Whether it is the first crocus blooming in the spring, the majesty of a lupine reaching for the sky, or the divinity of a peony in full bloom, each uplifts the soul and generates joy as people walk or drive by our home.
And in this special moment, I find meaning in the ordinary. If I can create the right growing environment for that particular crocus, lupine, or peony to achieve their fullest potential, to offer up their most incredible flowers at just the right moment when a person is walking their dog at dawn, a mother with a baby stroller who is trying to get a cranky little to go down for an afternoon nap, or a child is walking home after school, then the miracle of nature is experienced. Nature transforms that individual’s day into something special, a source experience that is positive, beautiful, and transformational. Then, my own mediative work of weeding and caring for all these plants is worth every minute, hours, and days of work. For at that moment in time, we, the gardener and the visitor, discover new meaning in a world where the why questions have not gone away, but they have all been put back into perspective. As the Buddha said, “If we could see the miracle of a single flower clearly, our whole life would change.”
Remember And Understand The Past
A while back I read a book by Timothy Egan called The Worst Hard Time: The Untold Story of Those Who Survived the Great American Dustbowl (Mariner Books, 2006). It is a tour de force of history about the Dust Bowl that terrorized the High Plains in the darkest days of the Depression. I read this book, because my late mother-in-law grew up in southwest Kansas right in the middle of it all. For her, black dust blizzards, crop failures, and hardships were part of her story. And I wanted to better understand this story about one of the nation’s worst and prolonged environmental disaster.
When I finished the book and as other family members were reading it, I encouraged her to read it too. A while later, myself and others sat down to discuss the book with her.
“I couldn’t finish the book,” she told us. “It just wasn’t my story or my experience. Yes, there were hard times and black dust every where. Yes, people struggled mightily, but, as a child, I grew up right through it all. What I remember about the Depression and the Dust Bowl was making mud pies with my sisters, singing as a family, the joy of getting an orange and a new pencil for Christmas. I just remember living and being grateful for all the blessings we had.”
As I listened to her share what she remembered, I came to understand that we are not the first people to go through a tough time in life. Many have done this before us. But most of all, I came to understand that, from her perspective, it was not a hard life. It was just a time to keep moving forward and to celebrate what they had when they had it.
On the days that I struggle, I remember my mother-in-law and then choose to put it all in perspective. On any given new day, just being together is the gift of this post pandemic time period. And being grateful for the blessings we have makes me focus forward. These may be challenging times, but it all depends on my perspective. Remembering and understanding the past helps me be grateful for the blessings I do have now in my life.
Know Thyself
One of the outcomes of a global pandemic is that life became homogenized. Everyone tried to not get sick, and some people were more effective at this than others. Furthermore, everyone stayed home when they could and limited the number of people in their “bubble.” As a result, everyone was worried and everyone was fearful. Those who were not part of our family became “the other people” and we did not cross path with “others” in fear of getting sick and then possibly dying from COVID.
Then, one day things started loosening up. More and more people did not wear masks. People actually went outside and greeted other people. Later, they shook hands. Next, people hugged family, friends, and neighbors. “It’s over,” and “we made it through” were common phrases that could be heard in large and small group settings. Still, the cost was high and quite a few of us lost loved ones along the way.
Now, we are searching for a new normal, and we are finding it difficult. This is because we have been changed by our experience of the pandemic, and society at large has also changed because of the pandemic. While things may appear to be the same outwardly, e.g. people are going to the grocery store and to work while children are going to school, our understanding about life now is quite different. We understand that life is fragile and not always controllable.
With this new understanding, I believe we need to sit down and take stock our lives and our life choices. The ancient philosopher Socrates understood this perspective when he wrote, “To know thyself is the beginning of wisdom.” He recognized that when we choose to understand and appreciate who we are plus what we believe, then we can make better life choices. With self-awareness and self-knowledge, we can make decisions based on clarity rather than default.
I think the choice now is to not default to pre-pandemic ways of thinking and living, but instead to consciously seek greater understanding, meaning and purpose in our lives. This begins by embracing the words of Charlie Mackesy in his book, The Boy, The Mole, The Fox And The Horse (HarperOne, 2019): “Always remember you matter, you’re important and you are loved, and you bring to this world things no one else can.” When we live with this degree of understanding and clarity, then we can co-create with others a new beginning and a new and better normal in this post pandemic world.
Rebuild Your Community
As I visit with more and more individuals and small groups, I have to come to the conclusion that a large number of people are feeling lonely and isolated during this time period. While we may not be physically isolated as we were during the pandemic, we are still feeling that way. I believe we are suffering from some degree of post pandemic stress disorder where we feel disconnected from ourself and our community. We also are afraid of exposure to what ever is coming next or some new version of COVID. In simple terms, we have lost a healthy and vibrant social life, because of all that has happened over the last three years.
Recognizing the diversity of emotions that we are feeling, I think the root cause is decision fatigue. In March of 2020 when the global lockdown started, we entered into a time period where there were endless decisions that needed to be made. These decisions were based on survival and functionality. Many of them were both complicated and complex. And given the number and magnitude of decisions we had to make each day, we ended up depleted at the end of every day.
Now, there is a major difference between doing things that deplete us on a daily basis, and doing things when we are depleted on a daily basis. The former causes the feeling of being depleted, and the later causes us to make careless choices, surrender to status quo, feel hopeless, and sometimes just do nothing. I think as we emerge from a global pandemic, we enter a world, where individually and collectively, we are running on empty. Our inner strength is weak and our willpower to rise again to another challenge is also weakened.
At times like this, I think of something Albert Schweitzer wrote years ago: “In everyone’s life, at some time, our inner fire goes out. It is then burst into flame by an encounter with another human being. We should be thankful for those people who rekindle the inner spirit.”
And this is what I think we need now, a rekindling of our inner spirit. We need to be with people who will help our inner fire burst back to life. The pathway to doing this happens when we build, and rebuild our community. We can no longer just focus on maintaining our bubble in order to survive, but we must instead choose to build a vibrant, healthy, and diverse community of new and old, friends and family. We need to invest time, energy, and space in our lives to reacquaint and reconnect with others from all walks of life.
As Carl Rogers reminds us, “The good life is a process, not a state of being. It is a direction not a destination.” And the direction we need to take right now and for many years to come is to focus on community building and community care. It is through these networks of people that we will find our inner strength, courage and hope. We also will discover a new sense of normal along the way.
Walk The Path
Right now, step by step, we walk through each day. Day by day, we move through each week. Week by week, we move through each month. And month by month, we move through this new year and into years to come.
We are walking the path forward into a new normal. “Wanderer, there is no road,” writes Spanish poet Antonio Machado, “the road is made by walking.” The same is true for finding a new normal. There is no new normal to be discovered. Instead, it is created by our walking forward with faith and purpose.
And as we walk this path from where we are now into a new normal, we must learn once again to see old things from new and different perspectives. We must believe in the light beyond, and be willing to call the light toward us. We must find meaning in the ordinary, and remember the past. We must learn to know ourselves, and to rekindle our networks and communities.
But along the way we must understand one more thing. “The place where we are genuinely met and heard have great importance to us,” writes Rachel Naomi Remen, M.D. “Being in them reminds us of our strength and our value in ways that many other places we may pass through do not…. The place in which we are seen and heard are holy places. They remind us of our value as human beings. They give us strength to go on. Eventually they may even help us to transform our path into wisdom.” For in these holy places, where we are met, seen, and heard, we realize that are not alone. Instead, we are with all the world, seeking and rediscovering our inner flame of strength and purpose.
We also come to realize that Ram Dass was right when he wrote, “We are all walking each other home.” For in this post pandemic time period, it is time to realize and choose a path where we leave no one behind, welcome all to join us, and recognize that there is more than enough to go around. We have survived a global pandemic and now have the opportunity to build a healthier and more resilient world, one relationship at a time. Today is a gift, and we can choose to walk together on this sacred path to wisdom.
© Geery Howe 2023
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