By Tom Robotham
In the wake of the election, as I noted here last month, I felt a profound sense of despair—and it lingers still. But in recent weeks, it’s been counterbalanced by meditations on hope—how it “perches in the soul,” as Emily Dickinson put it, “and sings the tune without the words/and never stops at all.”
I began to hear the tune again, as it were, with the approach of Thanksgiving. The day before the holiday, I had a lovely lunch with my daughter, who was visiting from New York, and our time together reminded me of how blessed I am to have her in my life—and to have such an abundance of cherished memories of her childhood, from the day she was born, to her first horseback riding lessons—when I knew she was beginning to share one of my great passions—to her superb performance as Ophelia in a production of Hamlet, while she was in the Governor’s School for the Arts. I had similar thoughts about my son. Although he and his wife remained in New York, we had a long phone conversation about baseball, music and all the writing he’s been doing as he works toward production of his next film. It’s hard to feel too discouraged, knowing that they’re in the world and are deeply committed to the project of making this a more just and compassionate society.
Right before the holiday, my hope was also bolstered by some of my students. Knowing that a lot of them would be traveling, I’d made my Tuesday classes optional. Only a handful showed up, but they were the best and the brightest, and I was deeply touched by their intelligence and enthusiasm. Teaching can get awfully frustrating at times, but in that moment, I felt profoundly grateful to have the opportunity to do what I do for a living.
I spent the holiday itself in solitude, since my daughter was with her mom. While that might sound depressing, it was not at all. As an introvert, I savor time alone, and I spent that particular day in my new apartment, listening to records on my stereo system, which was the first thing I set up, and relishing the space as a symbol of the opportunity for a fresh start—a chance not only to rid myself of 17 years of material clutter, but to declutter my mind.
I played some piano as well, and did some reading from a book that belonged to my father—activities that sent me deeper into a space of gratitude for childhood gifts. My mother was the musician in the family, and she gave me my first piano lessons when I was just 5 years old. My father, meanwhile, was a voracious reader, and instilled in me at an early age both a love of books and a commitment to the life of the mind—an intellectual curiosity that makes boredom an impossibility.
The book I was reading was a collection of poems by Robert Burns, his favorite poet, and it brought to mind a trip to Scotland that I took a few years back, where at one point I sat in a pub in Edinburgh under a portrait of Burns. This sent my mind reeling through the years of travel memories, not only all over the UK but in my beloved Paris.
There was a brief moment during this mind journey that I began to feel discouraged again, not because of our political crisis but because, at 68, I can feel the last vestiges of youth slipping away. On my last trip to France, the flight did a number on my back, and that hampered my ability to walk long distances—something I’ve always loved to do. But there’s an upside to being my age: Social Security and Medicare. Throughout my 50s and early 60s, I often struggled to make ends meet. Now, while hardly awash in funds, I rarely worry about finances. Indeed, I often tell friends—only half-jokingly—that before I go to bed every night, I say a prayer of thanks to FDR.
Admittedly, I have some concern about the future of these programs. If they were to be eliminated, or severely cut, I’d be utterly screwed. But that cloud of worry quickly passes these days, not out of some naïve optimism, but simply because of the realization that right now I’m still getting my check every month.
As the year winds down, I’m trying to maintain this Zen-like frame of mind, dwelling as fully as possible in the moment at hand, rather than drifting into dark speculations about the future of our democracy and the future of our stressed-out planet. Some people can do this more naturally than others. For me it’s always been difficult, which is why I’m eternally grateful for the Zen training I’ve had, especially during a retreat a few years back at the Zen Mountain Monastery in upstate New York.
Over the years, my interest in Zen Buddhism has served not as an alternative to my Christian faith but as a companion to it. The great “lilies of the field” passage in Matthew 6, after all, wholly conforms with Zen in its teaching that we should “take no thought for the morrow.”
Now, in this season of Advent—the coming of Light—I find myself returning again to the Gospels. I get that many people despise Christianity because of the bloodshed and oppression that’s been committed in its name, but throughout my life I’ve been continually drawn back to its metaphorical and liturgical beauty. For me, it is an ongoing project, defined not by its flawed history but by its core idea of agape—love for humankind.
It is the greatest challenge we face in these trying times, and my own heart often burns with the flames of hatred for those who seem motivated only by the desire to inflict cruelty. But that’s something I’m trying to fight, lest it consume me. Neither you nor I, after all, can heal the world in one fell swoop. All we can do is strive to cultivate kindness and enlightenment in the little garden patches that each of us inhabits—and to remember, as we do, the words of the great Stephen Hawking: “Where there’s life there’s hope.”
Essayist/opinion columnist Tom Robotham is the former editor of Port Folio Weekly and has had several books published, including “Charlton Heston Presents The Word — Hope & Joy” and “Varga.” Currently, he is an adjunct professor at Old Dominion University. He can be reached for comment at [email protected].
