The beauty of a vase is its shape. So it is with a life. When young, most of us hardly have the maturity to discern the shape of our lives, much less proactively mold it carefully the way a potter does with clay. Mostly, we are caught up in the pangs of growing up, of being an adult and all the responsibilities that entails – making money, building a career, raising a family, the works. In the maelstrom of these challenges, many overlook many life-enhancing opportunities to grow our inner selves, intangible things that with time will become the store of wisdom that can guide us into old age.
What is the shape of your life and my life? This is a question Michael Mayne pontificates in his wise and eloquent book, The Enduring Melody (2006). Mayne was Head of Religious Program, BBC Radio, Vicar of Great St. Mary’s, Cambridge University, and Dean of Westminster. Here are extracts from a chapter of his book, written shortly before his death at the age of 77 (words in italics added by me):
“There are a number of ways in which I may imagine the shape of my life, both its inner as well as its outer journey. I can see it simply as a straight line from birth to death, emerging from darkness and going back into darkness. Or I may picture it as a circle.
There is the natural circle of the seasons, echoing the rhythm of my life: the growth and vigor of spring; the richness and maturity of summer, the gradual diminishment of autumn, a time of harvest and falling of leaves; the bleak, but often beautiful landscape of winter, when the shape of trees becomes so much clearer. And the autumn and winter of our lives , the time when we begin to come full circle. But perhaps best of all, I can add the dimension of height (and by implication, depth) and see my life as a slowly descending spiral. For a spiral suggests a life where each new circle – each new year or decade – still contains within it the make-up of the old, the feeling of familiarity, (being) still aware of what it felt like to be a child, the lover, the parent he or she once was, and still displaying the same recognizable characteristics, but wiser now, shaped by life’s knocks, able to say, ‘I have been here before and learned a thing or two.’ Looking back, we can begin to understand our own unique story and see that we have been moving in a spiral round a center.
I see the chief task of the last period of my life (however short or long that may be) as a spiritual one: it is that of integration. Integration … is the art of bringing together what is scattered and diverse and forming a satisfactory whole; its opposite is segregation, division, alienation. In personal terms, integration brings contentment and peace of mind, whereas the failure to integrate leads to discontent, depression, and even despair.
Wisdom is the key to living an integrated life. Wisdom is the art of holding together the old and the new, of balancing the known with the unknown, the pain and the joy; it’s a way of linking the whole of your life together in a needful integrity … It will mean detachment and learning to let go. It will mean the wisdom, patience and contentment to move more and more from doing into that equally rewarding and much more important state of being, so that we may discern what matters and what doesn’t. And it will mean that we never stop growing in a sense of wonder at the familiar and in curiosity about the new. Near the end of Marilynne Robinson’s fine novel, Gilead, the narrator (a priest) is writing to his young son. It is a kind of love letter to life itself” ‘Wherever you turn your eyes the world can shine like transfiguration,’ he says. ‘There are a thousand reasons to live this life, every one of them sufficient.’
“At the still point of the turning world … there the dance is.” (T.S. Elllot)
As I grow old, it is this concept of the dance which becomes more and more important to me. I continue to celebrate the dance of creation, the dance of the universe, the dance of planets in space, the dance of molecules in my circulating blood and beating heart; the dance of the seasons, and of the whole natural world; the dance of faith in those painful times when it feels like dancing in the dark, and best of all, the dance of relationships, of forgiveness and friendship and love, which have created the true and enduring melody of our lives.”
Complement the above passage with these nuggets of wisdom by Rainer Maria Rilke and Bertrand Russell:
The Circle of Life
“I life my life in widening circles
that reach across the world.
I may not complete this last one
but I give myself to it.”
~ Rainer Maria Rilke, The Book of Hours
“Make your interests gradually wider and more impersonal until bit by bit, the walls of the ego recede, and your life becomes increasingly merged into the universal life.”
~ Betrand Russell, “How to Grow Old”, a chapter from is book (written in his 80th year), Portraits from Memory and Other Essays.
The Song Within Us
And here are some life-affirming words on loving ourselves the right to bring our the enduring melody. Narrated by Elizabeth Gilbert, an American journalist and author, best known for her 2006 memoir Eat, Pray, Love.
Read the entire book, The Enduring Melody by Michael Mayne (2006), described by Alan Bennett as a “heroic book … humbling and inspiring.”
