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 Is the Future?

What Is the Future?

Last updated on: May 12, 2016 at 1:48 pm by Richard Chess

What Is the Future? 2016-05-12T13:48:47-07:00 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.

It’s the end of summer in the academic South, and I’m working on syllabi for my fall courses: Spiritual Autobiographies and Beginning Poetry Writing Workshop. I’m creating the schedule, weeks 1 through 16. I’m filling in the dates, 8/17, 8/19, 8/24…11/23. I’m sequencing the assigned texts: Darling to Dharma Punx; Incarnadine to Night of the Republic.

I’m imagining the writing exercises, the first one an object poem, where the objects are one, five, and ten dollar bills which I’ll hand out in class, and they’ll write, and then we’ll read Howard Nemerov’s ”Monday: An Introductory Lecture,” and I’ll let them keep the money. In Spiritual Autobiographies, the essay based on interviews of parents, grandparents, former teachers, or other adults with whom they interact, about their spiritual lives. In draft form, these essays will be used as another course text. What can we learn about spiritual experience from the lives of those with whom we speak?

It’s the last day of July. (It’s not the last day of July in your life, dear reader, as you read this). The last day of July—fire, melon, granite, or mud—is filed away now with all the other Julys you have lived, maybe one or two of which are memorable—July 1976!—while others—July 1998, July 1965—are indistinguishable, one from the other.)

It’s July 31, 2015, and alone in my study I imagine myself inside my cluttered office in late October, oblivious to the sugar maples just outside my building firing off their farewell message before winter. In the syllabus, it’s November, my favorite month, the month of birthdays—my late maternal grandmother’s, my brother’s, mine.

In the syllabus, it’s November and I am bearing a backpack stuffed with anthologies, computer, iPad, wallet, and refills for fountain pens. An aluminum bottle of ice water hooked to my bag pings with each heavy step I take from car to building to elevator and down the second-floor corridor that darkens as it turns toward my office.

It’s the end of July, and I’m wearing shorts and jeans, I’m wearing a t-shirt and an Oxford button-down collar shirt, and I’m wearing Chacos and loafers. It’s a summer Friday and my calendar is clear, and it’s a fall Friday and I am rushing from building to building, checking email in my palm as I go, no time to lose.

What is the future? It must be the past, the twenty-six UNC Asheville Julys that have preceded this one, for as I look through the computer screen to the future right now that’s all I can see: the challenge of squeezing a meeting into a September Tuesday.

What is the future? It must be the habit of dragging out the shutting down of the computer—refresh email inbox, refresh the New York Times, refresh, refresh, refresh, desperately seeking the messiah—at the black end of an early December Wednesday.

What is the future? Is it the promise of redemption? Then why do I feel constricted when I look at the calendar, the crowded grid, the busy days ahead? Is the future the messiah’s radiant face and heart as wide open as a full moon? Then why do I see only the lined face of a legal pad, filling with lists of things to do?

You have no future with us. How lucky I’ve been, never to have been told this. Though I have been denied, because of two cells of prostate cancer, long-term care insurance. Though, because of bilateral aorta-femoral arteries bypass when I turned 30, it took me several tries, many years ago, to purchase life insurance.

The future’s so bright… Is it, then, sunlight? But it takes eight minutes for sunlight to reach the earth, so what we see when, wearing our stylish shades, we look into the sun is old, the past. And if your experience, dear reader, is anything like mine, you, too, know how the past, the personal past keeps growing, its shadow, cast across the present, ever widening, deepening.

The past: It’s voracious and would like to eat everything in sight, including the future. But feeding it only intensifies its hunger.

The near-term future: I can see it, too, the portion of it I’m preparing for now, the academic year. I can see what shape some of it will likely take, from here where I’m assigning its hours. But I’ll keep my eyes open as I go. I’ll try not to let my heart harden, as someone I knew did when he envisioned the future. You knew him, too, you who walked away from Egypt. Walking away from Mitzrayim, the narrow place.

A classroom, an office, a hallway, a quad, a campus: open and wide spaces in which insights may and do arise, in which intelligence can be and is cultivated, in which, every now and then, wisdom speaks. How light the backpack becomes then, how liberating the structures in which hearts become wise.

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

August 7, 2015

The Day I Became Elijah

Next Post

August 11, 2015 Happy Pride Parade

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

Where does the Bible say, "do to others as you would have them do to you"?

Select your answer to see how you score.

Luke Judges Leviticus Revelation