Translating the Ordinary

I came to do the typing. The words will be what they will. I will record them as they choose to flutter by. It is not hard, now, because they move at a pace I can keep up with; they are no longer running faster than my legs can carry me. It is probably good for all of us to slow down, to recollect the sense and the sound of the words—of the silences, too. How can you carry on without taking a pause for breath: a nice, solid, uncluttered pause, free from the need to do anything in particular? A lot is said about being. Being as opposed to doing. There is truth in this distinction. I can only speak to what I learn from being in the silence. Silence is the best teacher I have found. Many ideas run and play in the talking-through of things, but they only stop their gamboling and mature into full flower when the rushing has ceased, when their roots can sink into something solid. This is the nature of things. When human beings are restored to nature—which is based in simplicity—they find the truth they have been seeking. Live in harmony with the simple principles of life, and the simple pleasures of being alive will make themselves yours. There will be plenty of water and food and time to share. It makes you peaceful, this breath of pause, this listening for simplicity. You could search the whole wide world over for a teacher and would find nothing so beautiful or wise as this silence, this simple act of being open and ready to listen. Where do I find the authority to talk like this? I have no real authority. It is simply the gift of a continual listening, a pause with every word, to hear the stirrings of the next syllable of thought. In this way, I put together whatever sense has chosen to present its nature to me today. The record of its nature—its very imprint—is never complete. You must take a moment to stop doing and listen for yourself. The thrum-thrum of your heartbeat keeps you alive: but it is only known to you when you take a moment to seek it out and still the noise around you. Why search far and wide for the simple truths that have already found you? You make the work so trying and painful. It is not meant to be an arduous task. Simply open yourself to being your very self—“who is this self?” you ask; but that is for you to answer—and do not think your way into solutions or puzzles. You will only confuse yourself. Your mind—you can leave it to play. You must not bother with its activity now. Your help will come in the shape of a heart and you will find what you have been longing to see.

Elizabeth’s note: Consider this an exercise for drawing thoughts to the surface when nothing seems to come. I sat down to write, but hardly knew what my subject might be. I intuited that there was something there—something in the recesses of thought, waiting to be articulated. But how to discover the nature of that thought? In a spontaneous act, I decide to persuade the thought to come forward, to coax him from his hiding-place by speaking to him—writing to him, rather—as if he were a proper creature with a body and a name. At last, I got him to speak. Here is what ensued.

Is there something that must be said? Something that should be written now? I’m racking my thoughts. Is there someone there? Hallo? Hello? Was someone knocking? Step forward and announce yourself, if you want to be heard. Otherwise we will go about our duties and we won’t open the door again till very late. Are you there? Come, come, speak your piece. There will be a cup of cocoa waiting for you inside. It’s cold today. Come in, out of the cold. You are welcome here.

No? No one there? I have a feeling someone is there, hiding in the wings. Come out! No need to be frightened. We’ll listen to you gladly. We talk about many things in this house.

Yes, yes, I saw you move! A shadow of a movement—just there, beneath the tree. A little rustle. Come nearer! We won’t hurt you; we wouldn’t harm a fly. It’s so cold outside; you’ll freeze if you don’t come in. Please, please, Elizabeth is making cocoa on the stove. It will be ready soon.

Ah, yes, there you are! Poor little thing, all shivering and fingers turned blue. Come, come, let’s bring you in. There’s a warm blanket in the hall—we’ll wrap you in it. There you are, easy does it, just like that. Let’s get you to the fire. Take the chair, there. It’s big enough for someone twice your size. Little thing, just rest a while. Here’s your chocolate. Elizabeth will put it on the table for you. Drink when you can. It will warm your bones; it’s very good. One sip at a time—we don’t want you burning your tongue.

That’s better. Now the hubbub is done, let’s hear your name. Will you venture to tell us your name? A scrap of information; but how could we not ask?

Well now, dear. Just drink your cocoa, that’s all right. You’ll tell us your name in time. You’ve warmed yourself a little; your teeth have stopped shivering, I see. The cocoa always does the trick.

Now, dear, I don’t mean to be rude, but I’ve some business to attend to in my study today. So I won’t be staying with you all the noon. It was my impression you had a story to tell us. Something important to say. A born storyteller, I can see you are, dear.  

So go on, then. Let’s hear what you’ve got. No need for embarrassment; we’re all kindly around here. That’s a good dear. You mustn’t rise from your chair; just pipe up and we’ll all be fine.

The poor creature made his spine a little straighter and sat stiff against the back of the chair. His fingers were not so blue as when he first arrived, although they still trembled—in cold or in fear, or perhaps in both. He blew a breath, a tiny puff, as if to wake his voice from sleep. A moment’s pause, expectant silence. Another breath, another puff, an inflation of the cheeks and a compression of the lips. But no words escaped. The little fellow drooped in his chair, hanging his head to his chest under the weight of effort. It was as if he had never been taught how to form words; his mouth, bravely though it struggled, could not assume the proper shape, and no sound would come loose.

Oh, dear, what’s this? Cat got hold of your tongue? Like I said, no need to trouble yourself around us. Elizabeth, go to the poor boy. See what’s got him all tied up.

Elizabeth approached the sad little creature, all weary-looking, with a quiet step. With one hand, she took the creature’s palm; with the other, she gently raised his pointed chin. She saw a miserable look in his eyes, and her body shivered. What compassion could she show this little thing? The poor dear. Suddenly, she was lit with a thought, and letting go of the creature, fled the room.

She returned a moment later, bearing a pen and a few scraps of paper from the hall. She set them gently on the creature’s lap, along with a hard book for writing on. The creature smiled a peculiar smile—of gratitude perhaps, or of joy at being understood—and wriggled himself straight in his chair, his head hardly poking over the top rail. He took the pen into his tiny hands, and began to write: at first slowly, haltingly, and then with feverish insistence.   

This is what he wrote:  

(See Part Two) 

(Read Part One here.)

I have come to talk about fear. Fear is the nastiest devil the world ever welcomed into her quarters—rude and terrifying and full of lies—but the little devil is crafty enough to hide from even the most innocent eyes. Yes, fear is a sort of goblin, or ghoul, who promises you smoke and mirrors. Mirrors, I say, because he splits you into thousands of pieces and reflects you and refracts you unto yourself. You hardly know who you are or which face is the real one. Fear is the worst four-letter word. Curse words, ugly enough to the ear, are really not such harmful things. They’re just a trip of the tongue, a guttural attempt at expressing some stroke of anger, or frustration, or amazement, or total unbelief. In a sense—how much better these words than fear, since they are at least born from passion, and passion is the seed of life, the welling up of expression in the body. Fear reigns in the opposite kingdom, the under-kingdom of paralysis and stasis and caught breaths and planted feet. Fear shocks your body to the spot and surrounds you with mirrors, haunting you into a belief that you can choose so many roads, so many houses, so many rooms; but leaving you considering the multitude of possible glories and miseries so confusedly that, in the end, you choose none. You have resigned yourself to stasis and doubt; if you are not moving, and not going, or growing, what are you except dying? It’s worse than death, perhaps; because death moves you to an end, moves you to a new beginning; in fear there is a smothering of breath and a stopping of all the essential processes that give you the will to move.

Fear is an insidious beast because it cloaks itself in invisibility. You hardly know you are choked by fear, suffocated by its cunning grasp, until you are at your wits’ end and you wake up to the truth of the matter. Something has been splitting you apart, making you double in all your ways. You are, like the words of James, tossed about by the winds that blow the ship, because you lack a solid unity, an inner conviction that this is this and that is that. Fear has robbed you of this simple correspondence, and has put thoughts in your head that divide you against yourself, that make you like a house that cannot stand or a family who does not break bread together. Fear robs you of trust, of faith; fear is a merciless thief. It does not stop at anything to take away your joy, your truth, your trust that going forward is the right thing to do. Most of all, it takes from you your peace, and leaves you instead with a rotting gift, a foul-smelling sack of questions, all putrid and sick because they they are not the children of truth, but the illicit sons of lies and illogic. When you want to take a job, fear tells you that the work is too long, or the pay is too little, or you will be sacrificing your joy to a humdrum routine. When you want to leave a job because you are terribly unhappy, or unwell, fear tells you that you are selfish and that people will disapprove; that you are irresponsible and making a king out of pleasure. When you try to find a relationship that makes you happy, that lights up your soul—because you believe that such a thing is possible, believe that it’s what you’re meant for—fear tells you that sacrifice is a sign of love, that happiness is a complex thing and not felt only in high spirits and pleasant emotions. Fear tells you that if you leave, you will regret your choice and spend your days learning to settle for a lesser ideal. When you buy a ticket to travel, fear says you will fall sick and be too weak to enjoy the sights. When you lace up a pair of ice skates, fear stops you and says: you might fall on the ice and crack your bones. When you resolve to sing in the streets, or speak your mind, or—even!—dare to consider yourself a good person—at these moments, fear booms out in its menacing voice and says you’re proud, you’re not humble, you’re making yourself a god. When you make up your mind to do something—anything—fear sends you a hundred complications and whispers, declares, and then shouts that your plans will be doomed to chaos. What a misery! What a stifling prison of unfreedom and mistrust of the self, of life, of the possibility of good.

But, yes! This is the escape. When you receive a moment of light, when you see the trap of fear for what it is—a misery, a threat to your most inviolate freedom—then there is hope. When you can see that fear is making a dwarf of you, turning you into a shrinking thing, far from the ideals you keep safe and protected in the center of your heart—then you reclaim your will to live. You realize that you have been caught up by the invisible hand of fear; and, conscious of its dirty grasp, you start to shake loose its soot and ash.

This is the only possible response to fear: to recognize its untruth and its smallness. When you see that fear is the antithesis of all you believe to be good and true in life, then you have all you need to crush it underfoot. You understand that these false fears have no place in a life dedicated to the pursuit of good, and so you gather all your strength—strength seems to come quickly now, bubbling up in a warmth you didn’t know you could feel—and you see to it that fear will not be not your master. You stomp on its pretenses and break free of its chains. Fear has kept you rooted to one spot for oh so very long, and now it is time to scramble out, to teach your legs to walk forward again. Your task is to be bold. It is an essential duty; you must not fail in it. Be bold, and hold on to the truth, and fear will, by and by, have no choice but to vanish, like a ghost, into its crooked hall of mirrors.

Thus finished with his writing, the little creature, whose name was John, laid his papers on the table and then, looking exhausted, curled into a ball, and fell asleep. 

How can an excitement, so alive and brimming out of your soul in the morning, die by nightfall? When the sun rises, you think of something that makes you almost crazy with delight; it’s the thing that gets you out of bed. You savor the thought of it and it makes you laugh, and dream, and skip down the street. Your whole body sings out because the thought of this thing—whatever it may be: writing a story, solving an equation, meeting a friend—fills you with anticipation. It asserts its necessity; you decide that it is an imperative thing, the breath of your creative life. You plan, you move toward an end, you feel the rush of wanting to do or make or be a part of something important. Ideas spin and accelerate inside your head.

But gradually the duties of the day intervene. You have to wash the dishes filling the sink. You postmark a letter to a friend. You walk to the store and buy a jug of milk or a bag of tangerines, and then you chop the vegetables, cook the meat, and scrub the pots and pans to get dinner on the table. All of these things exact some cost of energy from you, and time, and attention. If the task is unpleasant, more energy is taken away, and not easily restored. By the time the dinner things are cleared, and the porch lights flash on, your lassitude is greater than your desire, and the thing that caught your soul aflame just half-a-day ago, now barely makes a flicker in your insides. You push aside the story-writing, the equation-working, the meeting with a friend. Your hands are too heavy to do the work. You think: How can it be that a passion perishes so fast? Are dreams so fragile that a pile of dishes and a household errand can rub them away? You felt that desire was so strong, so vital; but now it passes through your house like a ghost, willing you to chase after it, teasing you, dancing in the face of your tired resolve. You wonder how much you really desire the thing, after all.

Then you tuck yourself in bed, say your prayers, and hope that sleep restores your will to be alive in that most vital way. It occurs to you that mornings are nice, and full of all the hope of beginnings; and so you resolve to write your story in the first rosy hours of the day, before the passing of hours brings you farther and farther from the space where dreams have the energy to run and ride through the patterns of your brain and the depths of your being.