Author: Neil Hanson

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Relationship Business at the Final Threshold of Life

I was asked to do a guest post a couple months ago about “End Of Life Preparedness”. Specifically, to address the need for a thing like a Living Will. While I want to do the post, I’ve been putting it off while I work through a balancing act in my head.

I’m not an attorney, I’m just a guy who’s lost a mom, a dad, and a stepmom. I’ve seen other friends and relatives at the doorstep of death as well, and watched as they eased across that threshold into whatever might (or might not) lay on the other side.

What I’ve seen has colored my view of our responsibilities to one another at that important point at the end of this life. It’s colored the way I talk to my kids about how I want to live and how I want to die.

It’s not an easy thing in our culture. We’ve created a culture that absolutely petrified of death and dying. The subject is taboo, and we’re generally at a great loss for words when those around us feel the loss of a loved one. I blogged about loss in this post not long ago, and about our reactions to loss in this post.

It’s a great shame really, that we’re so afraid of death. Death is just one more of many transitions in life. If fact, from the time we’re born, we begin a long series of transitions that are all leading inexorably to death. Looked at that way, death is just the final of these transitions.

Depending on the spiritual paths you happen to be walking at this point in your life, you may view death as a beginning as much as an end. In my book, Peace at the Edge of Uncertainty, I share in very personal detail the spiritual context that I’ve developed as a result of mystical gifts that I’ve been privileged to be part of. If you believe in notions of reincarnation, you probably see death in this life as just another in a series of windows we pass through in the lives we’re part of.

But what about this path we walk today in this life? This path that leads without question to death. Continue reading “Relationship Business at the Final Threshold of Life”

Recent Blog Reviews of Peace at the Edge of Uncertainty

Nicole at Tribute Books but together a blog tour in September for me. I didn’t really know what such a thing was until Nicole educated me, but now that I know, I like it! Essentially, for the month of September, there are several literary review sites that do reviews of the book, and a few do author interviews instead of or in addition to. It’s been a little bit of work on my part, but it’s been a lot of fun. A good part of the fun is getting to read the wonderful reviews that folks have been giving the book – I’m really flattered and humbled by what some of these folks write!

Below are a few of the reviews that I particularly enjoyed. I’ll post links to others when the month is done.

Thanks again to Nicole for putting this together!

Day 8 – Twentynine Palms to Parker

Bicycle Touring in the West - Day 8 – Twentynine Palms to Parker

“The man in black fled across the desert, and the gunslinger followed.”
  ~ Stephen King, The Gunslinger

I lay awake and look at the clock beside my bed. 3:59 AM. I’m waiting for the wake-up call.

I’m not sure why I ever do this – ask for a wake-up call or set an alarm. Most of the time, I don’t use an alarm at all, but if I want to make sure I wake before 4:30 or 5:00 in the morning, then I’ll use some sort of alarm. But when I do, invariably, I’ll wake a minute or two before the alarm, and wait for it to go off.

I remember the exact day this started for me. I was probably around 11 years old or so, and we were spending a week in a cabin on a lake. I’d forgotten any sort of alarm clock, but wanted more than anything in the world to get up at 5:00 AM to go fishing. My folks let me take the old rowboat out into the cove by myself to fish, and the independence of taking a real boat out onto the water by myself was overwhelming intoxication to an 11-year-old boy who loved to fish. Continue reading “Day 8 – Twentynine Palms to Parker”

The Deed Done, or The Poison Left Behind

In a conversation with a friend the other day, my heart was breaking over how distraught he’d become over something he’d done and wasn’t proud of.

The deed was a small thing really, in the big scheme of things. Not a moment in life to be proud of, but neither a moment of darkness and desperation. Just a lapse in judgement, a small slight, a minor blemish. The sort of thing we’ve all got hanging around the dusty crevices of the paths we’ve taken through life.

But my friend held this “sin” up in the bright light in front of the eye of his mind’s judgement on himself, and couldn’t seem to let it go. He was letting it define him, and shape the “goodness” or “badness” of how he viewed his place in the world.

He could see clearly the arrogance that he was displaying in trying to hold himself up to the unreasonable standard of “perfection”. He knew – objectively and logically – that he needed to let go of this poison of self-loathing that was seeping into his soul. Yet he struggled to do this letting go. Continue reading “The Deed Done, or The Poison Left Behind”

Shelem, Shulam, Shalom

I’m not a student of Hebrew, but little bits and pieces of the language drift in and out of my life, and often fascinate me. I’ll request here that my Hebrew speaking friends correct me if I mis-speak below…

Shelem means “to pay for” something, while Shulam means “to be fully paid” for something. Two very similar words, and two sides of the same coin, so to speak. When looked at together, they represent reconciliation, completeness, balance, harmony.

Change just a couple letters, and we have the similar and related word “Shalom”, which I’ve always understood to be a bit like the Italian Ciao, the Hawaiian Aloha, or the Indian Namaste. Sometimes a greeting, sometimes a parting.

The difference is that Shalom always carries a meaning of “peace be with you” as part of the expression in my mind.

Come to find out, it’s a much bigger word really. While “peace” is a word I could use to describe the meaning, I could also use words like completeness, wholeness, health and welfare, perfectness, fullness.

Complete reconciliation with the Universe.

Perfect wholeness, nothing missing, nothing broken.

Exquisite harmony with every piece of the Cosmos.

Peace – with a capital “P” I suppose.

A very big word indeed…

Shalom!

Day 7 – Resting in Twentynine Palms

Bicycle Touring in the West
Day 7 – Rest Day in Twentynine Palms

“Don’t underestimate the value of Doing Nothing, of just going along, listening to all the things you can’t hear, and not bothering.”
  ~ Pooh’s Little Instruction Book, inspired by A.A. Milne

Falling asleep last night, I’d thought I might try and “sleep in” this morning. Silly thought, as I was probably falling asleep about 8:30 at night, to the sound of a loud and boisterous party out by the pool. Normally this would have kept me from sleeping, but for whatever reason, I was able to sleep through most of it, waking occasionally but falling back asleep.

I’m not a particularly good sleeper, often waking to the slightest of sounds, generally not able to go back to sleep if I get out of bed in the middle of the night. Under normal circumstances, I usually start waking up by 5:00 AM, and on this trip, I’ve been out of bed by 4:00 most mornings. So this morning, “sleeping in” means I’m able to stay in bed until nearly 5:30 AM. Which represents a very good night’s sleep.

Early morning is absolutely my favorite time of day. There aren’t many souls up and about early, so it always feels like I’ve got the cosmos to myself. Well, maybe not the cosmos, but this morning I at least the hotel lobby and breakfast area. I read while the breakfast counter is set up, and enjoy a very quiet and peaceful breakfast outside in the cool shade by the pool.

After a couple hours, some youngsters start to stake their claim to the pool, and I head back in to the breakfast area to enjoy a little “second breakfast.” There are quite a few folks in here now, and listening to the chatter around me, I’m able to deduce that along with the wedding party that stayed here last night, there was also a small group of young men from the nearby Marine Corps training center staying at the hotel while doing some training. There is every indication that some of the young Marines got to know some of the wedding party as the orbits of their respective parties seemed to intersect last night.

Isn’t love grand? Well, maybe not love, but at least everyone seems to feel better this morning. Well, OK, maybe not better in all respects – there are clearly some hangovers being carefully nursed. Well OK, in the case of the Marines, their leader seems none too tender with them in his “nursing” of their hangovers. Continue reading “Day 7 – Resting in Twentynine Palms”

Wood and the Language of Love

In some mysterious way woods have never seemed to me to be static things. In physical terms, I move through them; yet in metaphysical ones, they seem to move through me.
~ John Fowles 

A friend, (let’s call her Darla), told me once of a piece of furniture her husband had made for her. It meant a lot to her, she explained to me, because her husband is a pretty quiet guy, and she’s come to realize over the years that making things for her is his language of love to her.

Decades ago, I cut firewood to make extra money. Wherever I found trees being pushed over to make room for new houses, I’d ask permission to cut as much firewood as I could out of the area. Occasionally, I’d find an ancient tree pushed over that was big enough to harvest lumber from, and I’d work mighty hard to load it into my truck, and haul it to the sawmill, and have it milled down to rough-sawn lumber. Then I’d carefully stack and dry it.

I accumulated quite a treasure trove of excellent lumber – oak, walnut, and cherry mostly – much of which was 12” wide or more. I used it over the years, for things like bookshelves and fireplace mantles in homes we built. But much of it has stayed with me all these years, pieces of ancient woodland history harvested and cared-for by me as I’ve traveled through life.

I think I always held out hope that my kids would come to appreciate the deep wealth and history of those bones from within ancient trees. But, as is generally the case with kids, they follow their own paths, and those paths didn’t take them close to or through the libraries of ancient tree lore.

But fate crossed my path with Darla, whose husband used wood as a language of love. Who better to appreciate the thirty-something years of care my lumber received after the trees it came from had gathered life from the earth for hundreds of years? Who better to understand the significance of the language this wood can speak?

So I helped him load the wood into his truck the other day, and handed custody over to a younger man who can care for and craft the wood into it’s next iteration of language. While there was perhaps a tiny bit of sadness as the wood left, there was far greater joy that it might now be crafted into a rare and wonderful language.

My role in the transformation of those ancient trees was only to rescue their lumber, and to cure and care for the lumber through many years. Through those years, it aged and ripened in my care, preparing for the next step in its transformation. It’s now been given to its next custodian, who will help it emerge into a wonderful language – much like the language it must have spoken all those years ago standing tall and strong in the forest.

The groves were God’s first temples.
~ William Cullen Bryant, A Forest Hymn

 

Lots of things in life are like that, aren’t they? We’re often called to play a role for a time in the transformations of this world around us. To protect a thing, not to possess it. To be a steward, not a tyrant. To be a gardener and a nurturer, not a leech and hoarder.

To every thing, there’s a season.
A time for seed to take root,
A time for growing,
A time for uprooting…
A time for holding on,
and a time for letting go.

I am the heat of your hearth, the shade screening you from the sun; I am the beam that holds your house, the board of your table; I am the handle of your hoe, the door of your homestead; the wood of your cradle, and the shell of your coffin. I am the gift of God and the friend of man.
~ Author Unknown 

Book Review – Travels with Charlie

Travels with Charlie
by John Steinbeck
Author’s website

I’m sure I read Grapes of Wrath in high school, but haven’t read anything by Steinbeck since. I remember liking Grapes of Wrath, but it didn’t leave a deep impression on me. I’m guessing I stormed through the book just to get through it, and didn’t take the time to let it work its way into me.

I say this because in reading Travels with Charlie, I found many sections that I needed to read through quickly because they weren’t speaking to me or holding my attention, but other sections that were pretty dense. With this in mind, I’m guessing his other writing is full of the dense stuff.

This is a fairly short read that chronicles a trip across the country Steinbeck took in a camper in the early 60’s. Some good stuff, and a few dense parts, but generally just an OK read.

I picked it up because I’m in the midst of writing about a cross-country trip myself – one I took on my bicycle – and I thought I might pick up some good ideas on style and voice from a master like Steinbeck. I did that for sure, and while I was a bit disappointed in the book as a whole, reading it kindled in me a desire to read more Steinbeck. I think I’ll pick up East of Eden and read that soon.

Anybody suggest a different Steinbeck novel as a “first”? (I’m ignoring my early reading of Grapes of Wrath, since I must have slept through it…)

Seattle Post Intelligencer Review of Peace at the Edge of Uncertainty

The Seattle PI  published a review of Peace at the Edge of Uncertainty. Kind words that I’m grateful for. Text below:

In a time of unrest and world troubles, spirituality begins to eke back in the mainstream of society. Looking for the ever-elusive answers, many search for the process of belief.

Among this trouble and turmoil, Neil Hanson has brought forth an in-depth work of his own experiences, both as a young man and later as a grieving son. In Peace at the Edge of Uncertainty, we follow the ever-expanding view and belief of Hanson as he puts his thoughts and feelings on paper in the form of a letter to his departed father.

His story is written with emotion and feeling. His emotions show through, and whether they are his anger or his hope he shares them with the reader. He does not hide or try to belittle the mistakes he has made on his journey; he just states them as they are.

He does a brilliant job of allowing his emotion to show through, and yet he does not push his belief as the only answer. He shares his experiences of a possible after death experience: one that happened in a wrestling tournament when he was young and knocked unconscious. Even knowing at that time that something extraordinary has happened, he is not ready to believe or to share his experience.

It was only as he sits with his father as his life slowly slid away and watches the finality of the process that he is again offered a glimpse of that certain something the many often search for throughout their lives.

If you are a believer in a higher being, regardless of religious belief, or even a non-believer, you will find the poignancy of the story both sad and yet interesting. The beauty of the words adds a bit of poetry and harmony.

Through it all Hanson makes no excuses; he highlights his selfishness and thoughtlessness, as well as the beauty and wonder. I enjoyed the text in the form of a letter, although at times, I could not find the letter itself, and it read more like the passage of a self-expose.

If you are at all interested in spirituality or just wonder about the beauty of the universe, this would be a wonderful book for you. It is short and compact but carries hope and joy, along with a different way to look at life. In Hanson’s uncertainty, there is a form of verse and beauty: a certain creativity and sensitivity that guide you through the life of the author.

This would be a great book for a book club, a chance to talk about beliefs and thoughts. It would be a chance to air perceptions and interests, and lend credibility to both sides of the conversation.