Buddhist Catholic Contemplative Evangelical General Christian Hindu Jewish Latter-day Saint Muslim New Visions Progressive Christian

Beliefs

Topics

Columnists

Resource Library

Research Tools

Video

Podcasts

Thought Readers

Faith In Media Tracker

Newsletters

Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In Subscription Support

Follow Patheos

Good Letters

Home
Catholic
What I’ve Been Given

What I’ve Been Given

Last updated on: June 26, 2013 at 2:53 pm by Richard Chess

What I’ve Been Given 2013-06-26T14:53:49-07:00 Richard Chess

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

Six dogs: Snoopy, Prince, Woody, Ramona, Leon, Bubby. All but Bubby now nothing more than names.

Apology: not in the old high sense, think Sidney’s “Apology for Poetry.” Rather, this:

Let me introduce myself. I’m sorry that I didn’t visit you in the hospital. I’m sorry that I haven’t called you in a year. I’m sorry that I’m not as good a storyteller as you. I’m sorry I haven’t read-that classic-book. I’m sorry that I’m not as smart as you. I’m sorry that these books—my gift to you—contain only mediocre poems—my poems. I’m sorry that I’ve-spoken when I should have just listened. Nice to meet you.

Proof: the books on my desk, the books in the bookcase beside the window that looks out on a little piece of undeveloped woods, the books behind me, four bookcases full, lining the entire wall on the other side of which is our bedroom, with its own bookshelf: The Torah: A Woman’s Commentary, Everything Is God, Insight Meditation, Sabbatai Sevi: the Mystical Messiah, Proust and the Squid: The Story and Science of the Reading Brain, Zukofsky’s A.

Thousands of unread pages. Proof of my fear of death: every title added to the stack by my desperate attempt to guarantee the future, my future: time to read.

Talent: one friend is a singer of sacred music; one friend translates the music of one tongue into the music of another; one friend cures me when he can, and, when he cannot, steers me down the hall, from door to door, one specialist to the next, and turns me over to their care. These are my talents, my friends.

Coasts: Malibu to Margate. Malibu was yesterday, yes, yesterday, a trail in Solstice Canyon, a pier, sea-air, a long view of cliffs and coastline swinging out to sea: the beauty of what can be beheld but not be held, sealed in the specimen jar called memory, its beauty preserved to cheer me when I’m in need of cheering.

Margate was ages ago, a childhood, a wave, a milkshake, a jitney ride away from the roasted air of Planter’s Peanuts on the boardwalk. These are my coordinates, given to me by divorce, which also gave me distance, which I cherish and hold, which is why I hug the edges of a continent.

Time: this day for instance, risen from fitful sleep into a plan to fill the open hours, turned aside from the schedule by a phone call from a doctor, a dear friend, with word of his referral to a humble surgeon. Pulled after the first minute of meditation from what I’d intended to be forty by the sound of a son’s voice come to life. My need to see him, to hear his plans for the day, greater, I think, than his need to see me before he sped from the house.

Then reset the timer that will strike its bell deeper into the morning than I intended, but who’s expecting my productivity today? No one, so time’s mine to use however I choose. Or am I time’s to use for its inscrutable purpose? Nonetheless, time, my time: to read four pages of poetry, to compose two or three sentences, check e-mail.

Pounds: today, one hundred fifty-five pounds. How much does my worry weigh? How much does my fear weigh? My resistance, my ambition, my guilt, my desire, my grief, my, my, my, how much does it weigh?

Your love of me—love which I receive, love against which I protect myself, how much does that weigh? And if I were to subtract the combined weight of all this, how much would I weigh then? And all the books in my house plus the books at my office—do they weigh more or less than wisdom? If I have gained, over the years, any wisdom, does it weigh enough to register on the scale?

What have I been given? This breath. This one. Mind that wanders. Will that brings it back from Los Angeles to Asheville to Skyview Circle to this room, this bench, back from my longing for love, your love, to the muscles of my belly, expanding, contracting. That’s all.

Enough/not enough: salmon, insurance, socks, recognition, frequent flier miles, minutes, leg room, confidence, savings, patience, pens, Hebrew, education, sun block, solitude, luck . . .

Something to lose: this body.

My kaddish: A., M., and G., who know the prayer, the mourner’s kaddish: Yitgadal v’yitkadash sh’mei raba: May God’s name be exalted and hallowed. To them I will, one day, give the opportunity to fulfill the mitzvah (the commandment) of mourning the death of a parent—this gift from the same person to whom is given the awful power of hurting them with my passing.

Appointments, tickets (parking, speeding, concert), a Super 8 camera, excuses, half of my genetic history, an astrological sign (Sagittarius), stocks, uncommon health problems, students, offices, rain, sunrise seen from the top of Mt. Sinai, seat in a waiting room: I have been given these by cops, a guest at my bar mitzvah, receptionists, parents, the state of North Carolina, the laws of nature.

And, on this earth: I have been given one wife, one wise woman to oppose me, to expose the heavily guarded borders of ego, my raw need to be right, right about this, right about that, one strong woman to be buffeted by my sharp reactions to the ways another intelligent, compassionate being sees the problem (the problem that is the world, contracted now to the size of a man and a woman in a surgeon’s office) and a prudent course of action.

Every time she is not turned away by my narrowness, I am given the gift of the world—the whole, expansive, inclusive, imperfect world with its myriad ways of being. And so long as my resistance doesn’t break her, I have a chance to live, to love—for however long my body survives.

Richard Chess is the author of three books of poetry, Tekiah, Chair in the Desert, and Third Temple. Poems of his have appeared in Telling and Remembering: A Century of American Jewish Poetry, Bearing the Mystery: Twenty Years of IMAGE, and Best Spiritual Writing 2005. He is the Roy Carroll Professor of Honors Arts and Sciences at the University of North Carolina at Asheville. He is also the director of UNC Asheville’s Center for Jewish Studies.

Previous Post

June 12, 2012

Stations of the Cross on the A Train, Part One

Next Post

June 14, 2012 Half Man, Half Alley Cat

Browse Our Archives

Select a Category A. G. Harmon Alissa Wilkinson Allison Backous Art Authors Brad Fruhauff Bradford Winters Bryan Bliss Caroline Langston Chad Thomas Johnston Chris Hoke Christiana N. Peterson Culture D.G. Myers D.L. Mayfield Daniel Bowman Jr. David Griffith Elizabeth Duffy Faith Film Greg Wolfe Guest Contributor Interview Jan Vallone Jeffrey Overstreet Jessica Eddings-Roeser Jessica Mesman Griffith Kelly Foster Lindsey Crittenden Morgan Meis music Natalie Vestin Nick Olson Peggy Rosenthal Personal Reflection Poetry Friday Reflection Relationships Review Richard Chess Richard Cole Sara Zarr Shannon Huffman Polson Sonya Bilocerkowycz Tania Runyan Tony Woodlief Topical Categories Uncategorized Vic Sizemore Writing

Select a Month October 2018 September 2018 August 2018 July 2018 June 2018 May 2018 April 2018 March 2018 February 2018 January 2018 December 2017 November 2017 October 2017 September 2017 August 2017 July 2017 June 2017 May 2017 April 2017 March 2017 February 2017 January 2017 December 2016 November 2016 October 2016 September 2016 August 2016 July 2016 June 2016 May 2016 April 2016 March 2016 February 2016 January 2016 December 2015 November 2015 October 2015 September 2015 August 2015 July 2015 June 2015 May 2015 April 2015 March 2015 February 2015 January 2015 December 2014 November 2014 October 2014 September 2014 August 2014 July 2014 June 2014 May 2014 April 2014 March 2014 February 2014 January 2014 December 2013 November 2013 October 2013 September 2013 August 2013 July 2013 June 2013 May 2013 April 2013 March 2013 February 2013 January 2013 December 2012 November 2012 October 2012 September 2012 August 2012 July 2012 June 2012 May 2012 February 2008

TAKE THE

Religious Wisdom Quiz

Which prophet was exiled to Babylon and saw a vision of four living creatures?

Select your answer to see how you score.

Jeremiah Joel Hosea Ezekiel