I’m reading and reflecting on the writings of the late Howard Thurman, from his book Meditations of the Heart. If you’re unaware of Rev. Thurman, he’s well worth getting to know. As far as I know he never had to endure a crisis like Alzheimer’s or dementia. But endure crises he did. He grew up in Daytona Beach, FL, the grandson of former slaves. He had to travel to Jacksonville to attend high school because Daytona had no school for persons of his race. That was only the early years of the hatred he would face over the course of his life (1899-1981). Among his many roles, Thurman was a spiritual mentor to Martin Luther King Jr. and other leaders. The late Congressman John Lewis described Thurman as the “patron saint” of the Civil Rights movement.
Boston, MA portrait of Howard Thurman, September 15, 1958; Photo by Boston University Photography
The thing about relentless crises—crises like Alzheimer’s and racism and poverty and debilitating cancer—they are not the same, yet they are the same. They are the same in that they can shake the very foundations of your life while imploding the emotional framework you’ve built over a lifetime. How Thurman and other civil rights leaders survived the barbs, bricks, and threats thrown and spit at them—not to mention the lynchings and killings—is a testament to their seeing some fundamental Reality beyond the reality of the moment…while not denying that moment’s reality.
Thurman sent a copy of his book Deep River to Dr. King and his wife Coretta. In it he inscribed: “To the Kings—The test of life is often found in the amount of pain we can absorb without spoiling our joy.”
If that’s true—and memory serves me quite well—I often failed that test. And I suspect you have too as you’ve traveled through your own odyssey with dementia and Alzheimer’s, or whatever personal crisis. Yet such a “test” resonates within me for there was something beyond me and our family, some inexplicable force, that was encouraging us to get back up, to step back on to the path after we received the news in 1997 of my wife’s Alzheimer’s at age 50…after I had to take Martha’s car keys away…after her first seizure…after Martha needed to move into a memory care facility.
As we traveled through our often dark, 17-year odyssey, resources beyond mine were required to pull us back onto our path. How best do I describe this? Somehow, from somewhere, those resources emerged from a transcendent, mysterious force I know as God.
So bear with me as I try to connect two of Thurman’s meditations with our family’s experiences, and in so doing maybe they will connect with yours. The connections are at best emotional echoes and not taut lines of logic—deeply resonant, emotional echoes. In Thurman’s two meditations below, two phrases hit me with a gut-punch:
The first one: “The silent storm-swept barrenness of so great a loss.” Do I need to explain that to you who may be going through your own trauma? I doubt it.
The second one: “The weakness that engulfs me in its writhing toils…” If ever a phrase more aptly describes the ever-changing, volatile symptoms of Alzheimer’s than “being engulfed in writhing toils”, I’ve yet to see it.
If you take time to read these meditations, which I certainly hope you do, please read them aloud to yourself—slowly, slowly—letting his words sink in ever more deeply. (If you’d like to hear Thurman’s voice, you can find an example in his lecture on “What Do I Want, Really?” Listening to an author’s voice, or a poet’s, often adds a fuller dimension of meaning to what I’m reading.)
Reading these two meditations seem to fit perfectly in this season between Thanksgiving and Hanukkah and Christmas. They are filled with great grief, great empathy, great joy, and great comfort.
The first meditation…
For a Time of Sorrow
I share with you the agony of your grief,
The anguish of your heart finds echo in my own.
I know I cannot enter all you feel
Nor bear with you the burden of your pain.
I can but offer what my love does give:
The strength of caring,
The warmth of one who seeks to understand
The silent storm-swept barrenness of so great a loss.
This I do in quiet ways,
That on your lonely path
You may not walk alone.
The second meditation…
Surrounded by the Love of God (With a few edits by me for clarification)
I am surrounded by the love of God. The earth beneath my feet is the great womb out of which life comes in utter abundance, the life upon which my body depends. There is at work in the soil a mystery, a mystery by which the death of one seed is reborn a thousandfold in newness of life. The magic of wind, sun, and rain creates a climate that nourishes every living thing. It is law, and more than law; it is order, and more than order—there is a brooding tenderness out of which every living thing comes. In the contemplation of the earth, I know that I am surrounded by the love of God.
The events of my days strike a full balance of what seems both good and bad. Whatever may be the tensions, the stresses of a particular day, there is always lurking close at hand the trailing beauty of forgotten joy or unremembered peace. The weakness that engulfs me in its writhing toils reveals hidden strengths that could not show their face until my own desperation called them forth. In the contemplation of the events of my days, I know that I am surrounded by the love of God.
The edge of hope that constantly invades the seasoned grounds of despair, the faith that keeps watch at the doors through which pass all the labors of my life and heart for what is right and true, the impulse to forgive and to seek forgiveness even when the injury is sharp and clear—these and countless other things make me know that by day and by night my life is surrounded by the love of God.
I am surrounded by the love of God.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
May this indeed be a season of deeply meaningful joy and light as you travel your own road that too often can be dark and lonely. And may you remember “that on your lonely path you may not walk alone” while your “hidden strengths are revealed when your own desperation calls them forth.”
I hope you can hear Thurman’s echoes of joy and comfort as I do.
Carlen Maddux
carlen@carlenmaddux.com
www.carlenmaddux.com
PS1 Feel free to forward this post to anyone you think might find it of interest. I’m stocking up on Alzheimer’s stamps for Christmas/New Year’s cards that I’ll be sending out. An inexpensive way to support the end of this disease is to buy several sheets of the Alzheimer’s first-class, forever stamps ($15 for a sheet of 20). As you know, the net proceeds from its sales go to the National Institutes of Health for Alzheimer’s research. As of September 2022, 10.2-million stamps have been sold, raising over $1.3-million for research. Join me and thousands of others to Help Stamp Out Alzheimer’s. If you can’t find the stamps locally, you can order online by clicking here.
PS2 If you’d like to sign up for my blog, there’s no charge; just click here. (If that doesn’t work for some reason, you can always email me direct at carlen@carlenmaddux.com, Subject Line: Add to Blog. And I will manually add you to the list.)
PS3 My book, A Path Revealed: How Hope, Love, and Joy Found Us Deep in a Maze Called Alzheimer’s, can be found on Amazon and other online book stores. I share our family’s 17-year odyssey of living with this disease. But Alzheimer’s is not the focus of our story; it’s the context. The focus is the spiritual odyssey that unfolded before us, sometimes in strange and surprising ways, other times in the most ordinary of ways.
