MY COURAGEOUS LIFE
MY COURAGEOUS LIFE
has gone ahead
and is looking back,
calling me on.
My courageous life
has seen everything
I have been
and everything
I have not
and has
forgiven me,
day after day.
My courageous life
still wants
my company:
wants me to
understand
my life as witness
and thus
bequeath me
the way ahead.
My courageous life
has the patience
to keep teaching me,
how to invent
my own
disappearance,
and how
once gone,
to reappear again.
My courageous life
wants to stop
being ahead of me
so that it can lie
down and rest
deep inside the body
it has been
calling on.
My courageous life
wants to be
my foundation,
showing me
day after day
even against my will
how to undo myself,
how to surpass myself,
how to laugh as I go
in the face
of danger,
how to invite
the right kind
of perilous
love,
how to find
a way
to die
of generosity.
…
My Courageous Life
A new adaption of ‘Second Life’
in Pilgrim
Poems by David Whyte
I find Whyte’s poem compelling enough in my life now to want to wander through each stanza and linger long.
Last night, I zoomed with 5 of my closest friends from my early Christian years back in college. Seven of us (we were missing one last night) were clamorous, unrefined (though some may argue that they were more refined than the others), and attracted to any kind of fun and mischief like moths drawn to a flame. There was even a nickname designated to us aptly called “animals.” I could write for days to tell all the stories. . . We felt like the world was our playground and everyone else was our supporting cast. But above all, our lives were transformed by Jesus, and we all loved Jesus. Over the years, not that full-time service deserves special praise or recognition, 6 of us have served God either as pastors or missionaries while others supported and encouraged others. Two brothers up in Pacific Northwest are serving as pastors though one is in transition. One is in Australia serving as a pastor. The father of one brother just passed away a couple of weeks ago; his father had just celebrated his 100th birthday a few months ago. And most of us have already turned 60 with me and one other to turn 60 in a few months.
Our current life’s context dictated much of our sharing and reflections last night. We have a fuller and wider view of our lives, and all possess the kind of quality to detach ourselves from our first half of life’s accomplishments as well as to own hard lessons learned.
This is the context in which I come to this poem this morning. The second to the last stanza grabbed me today. My true self (or what Whyte calls “my courageous life”—that’s how I am interpreting the poem today) looks to undo or at least suppress my ego while thanking my ego for my survival during much of the first half of my life. My true self desires to go beyond the glass ceiling of my ego’s misguided protection and security. I want to at least smile if not laugh out loud in the face of danger and risk. As I shared last week, I know what awaits me is both “harsh and exciting.” I want to count all the blessings and enjoy the grand table spread before my “enemies” while laughing in the face of peril.
We are all at a point where we have to risk everything and do what makes our heart bloom and blossom. With honesty, a wider and longer view of life, and our ego in check (mostly), we realize that we must pursue our individual heart’s calling. Without anyone saying it out loud, we all knew viscerally that was the invitation. It seems to me this morning that was our way of “inviting the right kind of perilous love.” Not pursuing perilous love is even riskier at our age. Just perhaps that is a “way to die of generosity” when the time comes.