What goes around...

“I have only two tasks in life.  To love God with

all my heart and the person in front of

me at any particular moment…”

- Unknown Hispanic itinerate minister

The young man sat across from me in the office…young and old, sometimes it just works out that way.  We had gotten to know each other a little and it wasn’t the first time we had talked about life and philosophy.

I have come to appreciate, if not understand, the universe has its own rhythm.  He had been on my mind, and had just picked up the phone when the text came:

“Hey Ted, it’s Jim.  When you have some time available I’d very much like have a chat and coffee again.  I have a situation I would like your insight/advice about…”

 “Hi Jim. I was just thinking about you this morning.  There must have been a reason…if you want to come over…feel free to do so.  I’m open from now ‘til about 3 o’clock.

Jim arrived and for the first hour or so, we talked about a variety of things.  He is a bright and articulate 28-year-old young man…mostly self-educated, but a genuinely enthusiastic seeker and learner.  The conversation drifted to the personal situation for which he had come.  He found himself, in what he perceived to be, a ‘room’ from which there was no escape, and his pain was palpable as he talked about it, tears welling up in his eyes. 

While there was little doubt he had an issue, he was unable to see alternative solutions or the positive things that had been going on in his life.  In this moment of despair, he was blinded to his gifts and intellect or thoughtful resourcefulness.  He was, as we all are in difficult situations, unable to see the “…forest for the trees…”

Déjà vu…

There was another day and another time when an older fellow let the young man describe his gloom...that his life had hit a wall over which he could not see.  How could there be a future with this life failure?  What was he to do now?  Where would he go?  In the crisis all seemed lost.

The room seemed eerily quiet and in the strangest way isolated in time as if it had detached itself from the world.  The young man had come only to talk and explain what led to his situation, but there was something in the older man that drew the pain out of him like a poultice sucking poison from a festering wound.  The younger man could no longer contain himself and openly wept at the darkness that surely lay ahead.

After sometime, saying very little, the older fellow gently touched the young man’s knee, and said, “Look at me…Listen to me,” the voice a soft and caring tone.  “I understand this is overwhelming to you.  I realize you feel there is no escape and that you believe you have no other options.”  He continued, “I am telling you now that you will look back at this moment in five years and you will smile.  This I know and of this I am confident.”

He had taken the time to listen to this distraught young man who saw only failure in front of him… a young man who could not have imagined the life that lay ahead of him…a young man who needed hope when it seemed all hope was lost…

Back to my office…

All of this flashed through my brain at the speed of light.  In an instant, I was drawn back to that moment of time in 1976 when I had to drop out of school from a serious case of the swine flu.  It was not clear I would be able to return at all, and had come to withdraw.  Dr. ‘M,’ my advisor in the physiology department at the university, recognized the need to close the door of his office, quietly listen and encourage me in a moment of great despair.

As thoughts of this event sped through my mind, I hoped that I was being as helpful to Jim as this man had been to me.  I felt powerless, as I am sure Dr. ‘M’ did for me, for all I had to offer Jim was my time and my ear.

When it felt as though Jim had said all he could…the pressure somewhat reduced, I found these decades old words come to my mind with the brightness of a pulsing neon sign, as though all I needed to do was read them…and ‘read them’ I did.

“Look at me…Listen to me Jim,” I said in the gentlest and firmest voice that I could muster.

“I understand this is overwhelming to you.  I realize you feel there is no escape and that you believe you have no other options.”  I continued, “I am telling you now that you will look back at this moment in five years and you will smile.  This I know and of this I am confident.”

I do not know exactly how Jim’s life will unfold, as I am now certain Dr. ‘M’ did not know about mine.  What he did know, and what I now understand is that our job in life is to pay things forward…to plant uplifting words of hope in the minds of others…to do unto others merely what has been done for us.  

All of us have had these times in life and been given these kinds of words…Maybe one of these days Jim will find himself saying, "Look at me..Listen to me..."

- ted