TeresaS -- Wisdom, Integrity, and Detachment

Retired teacher I may be -- but currently I have a wonderful teacher.

She reads me like a bold-print, wide-open book. I've given up trying to hide either the truth or myself from her.

I lied to her once in the past. But she reads from so many different perspectives, she wasn't fooled. It was a simple lie. She asked how I was doing, and I smiled and said Okay! She knew what I was saying was probably not true. I mean, in that instance, my assertion didn't fit all the other evidence she was seeing. I think, however, her main concern was whether or not I thought what I was saying was true. I suppose she quietly thought: if he thinks that's true, we have a perception problem to deal with. . . .

Nor was I dumb enough to think I'd fooled her. To complicate the matter further, I knew she was reading me clearly. I knew I wasn't fooling her. I don't think she blamed me. I think she knew that at that difficult moment, I was just not able to accept and say the truth out loud. But I couldn't hold a lie between us either. So I finally just told her the truth and promised not to lie to her again. And I haven't.

Telling the truth may simply mean I'm getting stronger and more able to look directly at a difficult truth and express it -- whether or not I am yet able to accept and embrace it. Telling the truth is like weight training. You have to do it all the time, or you get flabby, unable to manage the weight -- be it iron or honesty.

Still, I think truth-telling has been functional and helpful for both of us. It's helped us set learning goals, pull together a sort of learning map, and chart meaningful courses. Our map tells us where we've been, where we are, and how well we're truly doing. I mean, we're on a journey together. We're moving ahead, back-tracking, seeing the sights from several perspectives, revisiting scenes and scenarios. We're getting increasingly comfortable with new and old terrains and each other. The map is filling up, a sort of compendium of our travels and discoveries.

Teresa's a bright and insightful traveling partner. She's about one-quarter guide and another quarter guard-dog. She's a clever questioner and sleuth. She's bright, knows a lotta stuff -- theories and practices. She's tough, too: one time she told me vehemently she "certainly would NOT be my mother." But I see how she protects me, how she hopes for me. (Well, truthfully: teachers have a PROTECTIVE MODE AND FUNCTION, too. So that's all right.) We also make each other laugh -- which is really nice.

She's a lovely woman. The only woman, and nearly the only person I ever talk to, in fact. You LAUGH! But one of my worst fears is that, as I become increasingly isolated, I will lose whatever polished social skills I may once have had. I find myself going to the grocery store with short lists, just so I can tell my worried daughters: "Yes! I was out among people today. Yes! I spoke to several people." I said: "blahBLAH, please. . ." and "Thank you so much. . . . Stuff like that. But I let my daughters think I was out having wonderful conversations. No need they should worry. (I'm a big-boy now.)

I go when it's fairly teeming with shoppers and carts. I get to say: "Oh! That's okay: take your time." Or: "Why don't you go right on ahead!" Or: "Here: let me lift that down" to some height-challenged frail old-lady (about my own age).

And when I check myself out at one of those computerized stations where a vaguely female voice gets all bossy, I do as I'm told, while still talking back. I swear those machines have various psychological problems they work-out on their hapless and unskilled checker-outers.

Sometimes I get through unscathed. Mostly, though, the living-bodied cashiers have to come rescue me. Then I get to practice saying: "Thank You So Much!" (And really mean it!)

And I even get to make a gift of my coupons that come tumbling out of the machine, in which case someone actually speaks to me, saying: "Oh! Thank you. . . ." Occasionally some brave soul offers me one of the coupons back, saying: "Oh, you'd love this. . .so easy to fix. . . ." Just as if she realizes what a kitchen-moron I truly am. Believe me, I know how those cave men in the television commercials feel: "So easy an aging widower can do it!"

But I digress.

About my teacher: she gives me writing assignments. Well, not actually. She gives me stuff to think about, knowing by now that I will think and write down what I think -- because writing is pretty much how I think.

News Flash: She should charge me by the email-YARD instead of by the hour.

As I left class the other day, she handed me two book titles and two written definitions. Before I thought much about the definitions, I swung by Barnes and Noble and ordered the books. I know! I KNOW! The internet. But I like bumping around among people -- again for my daughters' sakes. More exactly, I like to be among people, even though we're seldom engaged.

One Post-it, two definitions:

Wisdom:
A detached concern for life itself. . . .

Integrity:
The search for balance, with
a pervasive sense of despair. . . .

After much thought, writing (and deletion) I submitted my thinking to Teresa this morning. My brief essays included statements like these:

Both wisdom and integrity require a high degree of detachment.

Wisdom is essentially different from brightness because it examines the greater world which lies beyond us, outside us, untouched by us. Wisdom ignores our petty needs, wants, and hopes. It expresses a universal, rather than an individual and personal perspective.

In his remarkable poem "I carry your heart with me" e e cummings references this infinite and impersonal world when he speaks of

. . .a tree called life which grows higher than
the soul can hope or the mind can hide. . . .

Life in that sense is beyond what is personal, beyond what any individual soul or mind can possibly engage, contain, or control. Life pays us no mind. It acts by its own rules, and is not touched by our hopes and desires. It acts. We endure -- or not.

Wisdom is like that. It expresses an a-priori, truth which does not yield to individual thought or hope. Such truth was given prior to, or before human existence. Again, we must recognize and endure it. It does not change to suit our whims or personal circumstances.

Integrity is best defined in terms of wholeness. It's more than just honesty. It implies an entire system of truth -- like the Ten Commandments, for instance. When we speak of a person having integrity, we mean that this person has it ALL TOGETHER. Such a person is ONE PIECE. His knowledge and feelings, his hopes and actions adhere completely to some set of principles he holds to that are beyond himself -- beyond his preferences or needs in the moment. We can trust this person to do as he promises.

Such a person is detached from, though engaged with the larger issues of life -- issues like responsibility and service, generosity and love, grace and spirituality.

Such issues commonly engender pervasive despair, because we see all around us man's failure to achieve balance between and among competing realities, groups, preferences, and possible outcomes.

For instance, once we examine the tragedy of Haiti today, how small does it make our own misery appear? It doesn't deny our own losses. But it alters significantly our sense of human suffering. It helps us put our own losses into perspective.

Such inexpressible misery strengthens our resolve to carry our own losses with greater courage. Yet, realization of the vast scope of human misery may well generate a pervasive sense of despair. And this despair may well move us to act and grow, to attempt to solve problems best we can.

Which, I suppose, is precisely why Teresa handed me that post-it note. She reads me and leads me. And I herewith utter

a prayer of thanksgiving

for teachers like TeresaS