It’s a slate-gray day with grainy flecks of sleet dropping
on old, crusted snow and bent, broken stands of rye and rabbit brush. Wild turkey peck seeds from the bare ground
along the ridge between the upper and lower fields. It’s far darker than your average storm day
and I’m feeling the weight.
I work with special needs children and although they are
very sweet, they are physically demanding. So, I’m feeling worn out on a day I
need to do lots of work on my church calling, Ward Historian.
Right now, I just don’t feel up to it. But rather than numb my mind with television
or video games, as I sometimes do, I thought I might as well write the next
post for my blog.
It’s somewhat appropriate that I write about Kent Nerburn’s Small Graces on a day I’m not finding
much enlightenment because gritty honesty is what separates Nerburn’s
inspirational writing from much of what is out there. He provides what have become common, maybe
even cliché tips for transcendence through Buddhist-like attention to the moment,
but there is a softness, a quiet integrity, an unspoken awareness that, yes, life is hard, that gives his
writing substance.
It’s simple writing.
Marci read a bit of it, concluded there wasn’t much to it and thought I
could probably write a similar book better, but I don’t think she’d gotten to
one of his stories, examples from everyday people who live extraordinary lives and
have taught Nerburn extraordinary lessons.
These small graces unfold magnificently, one after one, showings us a
way to make life our art.
I would like to share one here:
In the chapter “Why Birds Fly,” Nerburn shares the story of
Nikki, a friend of his who has cerebral palsy.
He says, “her days were spent in a ‘sheltered workshop’ sitting at a
long lunchroom table putting spatulas in plastic bags with her toes,” but “at
night she wrote—holding a notebook with one foot and the pencil between her
toes of the other—creating poems, visions, stories of birds in flight” (83).
He then admits that as much as he admired her vision, he was
quietly horrified of her muse, for she wrote “poems to a nonexistent and
unknown lover” (83).
She would say, “Someday I’m going to get married” and he
would smile and nod, but admits, “like the parents in the supermarket, I
averted my eyes” (83).
He then shares how he was wrong. She meets him on a street corner, shows her
engagement ring, declares, “See!... I told you” (84)
Then she asks, “You know why birds fly?” (88).
Unsure whether she is joking or serious, he says, “No, tell
me” (88).
To which she responds, “Because they are so damn bad at
walking” (88).
I am like Nikki. If I
can fly at all, it is only because I’m so damn bad at walking. In my teens and early twenties, I was driven
to write because I was too damn shy to talk to anybody. But I now realize I’m not that unique. All our gifts are compensations for
inadequacies. We need to realize this in
order to live up to our own potential, but more importantly, we need to know
this so we recognize greatness in unlikely places. What future flight goes un-fostered because
we focus on stumbling feet instead of outstretched wings?
Nerburn, Kent. Small
Graces. Navato: New World Library,
1998.
