The Paradox of Suffering and Beauty

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I am in between caminos, having completed the Camino Primitivo in Spain in late September, and the first of two Cammino/Via De Francesco in Italy in early October. In a few days’ time, we’ll be embarking on the third. I’m taking this brief interlude to reflect, now that my body has caught up with itself. An initial thought was to ask myself why I keep walking the camino/cammino 16 times since 2022 clocking just under 2,000 kilometres? If it’s to alleviate boredom, walking over 3 million steps, one foot in front of the other repetitively, is a definition of boredom.

 

The In-Between Spaces

The paradox of the camino is that it is precisely boredom that sits across from frenetic. Most of us can attest to the frenetic nature of our lives – buzzing with ceaseless activity. Walking the camino, at least for me, allows me to enter the in-between spaces so my brain has the margins it needs to re-centre, re-calibrate, re-focus, on what’s truly important. As sentient beings (which humans are), wired for movement, walking is that one human activity that synchronizes body, mind, and spirit. It places it into a cadence that is hard to find in any other human activity (refer to the blog on ‘Walking at the Speed of Life’).

The Paradox of Life

The Cammino De Francesco traces the area that St Francis of Assisi covered during his lifetime. This year marks the 800th anniversary of his death and it was particularly moving to be in the same space geographically where the poor man of Assisi left such an indelible mark on history. In this painting of Francis, he is nearing the end of his life. He was experiencing severe physical suffering and eye disease which left him almost blind.

‘Canticle of the Creatures’ was composed by St. Francis around 1225, in this weakened physical state near the end of his life in 1226. Yet, ‘Canticle of the Creatures’ is perhaps the most beautiful expression of St. Francis’ spirituality. He does not simply praise God for creation, but praises God through creation!  This image captures a remarkable Franciscan paradox – a man whose physical world was becoming dark could still sing about the beauty of creation!

In the in-between spaces of my time in Italy, I have been visiting art museums. A Vincent Van Gogh painting here in Rome, ‘The Gardener’ (1889), was painted in the asylum garden of St-Remy where he committed himself and was there for 12 months. This led me to another painting while he was in the asylum, housed in The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City. ‘Corridor in the Asylum’ was also an 1889 painting where he captures the interior view of one of the asylum’s corridors. Despite his colourful palette of picturesque wheat fields, olive groves, cypresses, roses, and irises in and around the monastery, the asylum corridor feels hollow and haunted. A man recedes into the background, engulfed by the hollowness. Not having found the cure he had hoped for at the asylum, Vincent died by suicide shortly thereafter.

650 years separate these two incredible human beings – Francis of Assisi (1182-1226), and Vincent Van Gogh (1853-1890). The former a radiant radical who turned poverty and creation into love. The latter, a tormented visionary who turned suffering into radiant colour. Whether suffering physically or mentally, on a bed of stone or in an asylum, the paradox of suffering is that it can be the precise gateway to seeing and creating beauty, both in the natural world around us and to read through the mind’s eye within us.

Solvitur Ambulando; Sanatus Ambulando

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"When you’re on the Camino Santiago, which is more than 1000 years old, you’re immersed in the embrace of the past, the present and the future. You’re also primed to walk in all three temporalities."

~ timothy khoo

“Solvitur Ambulando” is a Latin phrase that literally translates as “it is solved by walking.” It is attributed to the Greek philosopher, Diogenes, extolling the virtues of motion. The latter, “Sanatus Ambulando” is a derivative translated to “it is healed, it is restored, by walking.“

Following hip replacement, knee replacement surgery, the physiotherapist will almost immediately get you on a rehabilitative regime that involves walking. Even after open heart surgery, within a few days, rehabilitation and healing involves walking. Whilst an ambulance may be a necessary form of conveyance to the hospital, being ambulatory is now the continuing journey of restoration. Solvitur ambulando, sanatus ambulando.

 

Being a pedestrian or being pedestrian does not lend itself to excitement. Yet, there is a joy to be found and to be mined in being pedestrian, in being a pedestrian – a walker, someone travelling on foot. Being pedestrian means dull or commonplace. Amidst the complexity and craziness of our lives with its packed schedules and/or excruciating loneliness, we distract ourselves with sedentary pursuits – social media, vocation, television, even medication. Sedentary and sedated share the same Latin root – to sit, in other words, not to move. We anesthetize ourselves, sedate ourselves. How do we wean off anaesthesia?  Solvitur ambulando, sanatus ambulando.

 

Amid all this, we are given the gift of walking, of being pedestrian, a pedestrian. Being prosaic yet holding the promise of change and newness, new sight, new vision, new perspectives as we walk, while we walk, not as a means to an end but as an end in itself. Walking with less thought to destination than journey. Planting one foot in front of the other 200,000 times (the distance on camino desert odyssey), so we are present to the present, present to people, present to ourselves, and not to some distant dispensation. There will be time for that. For now – solvitur ambulando, sanatus ambulando.

 

In the waning years of my father’s life, he was in poor health (in some ways as a consequence of a sedentary lifestyle), and not particular ambulatory. At Odyssey, a programme at Prison Fellowship International where I served for 25 years, I invited dad to be Chaplain-in-Residence for the leaders that came from all over the globe. In the course of the programme, dad and I took many evening walks in the cool dusk and rich foliage of the Singapore Botanical Gardens, which was literally across the street from where we held Odyssey. Dad’s walking was laboured and yet the walks were life-giving, trod often in silence and yet in deep conversations of the heart – solvitur ambulando, sanatus ambulando.

 

On one of the camino desert odyssey in 2023, I was sharing about my neurodivergence – dyslexia, dyspraxia, auditory processing disorder, attention-deficit hyperactive disorder, and depression thrown into the mix for variety. One of the sojourners, a seasoned and very senior human resource executive blurted out that if not for my moral failure that necessitated my resignation in 2014, I might well have been fired for my incompetence as CEO. In that role, the complexities of diverse responsibilities and decision making require cognitive capacities that are a struggle with someone with neurodivergence.

 

 

The stunned silence filled the room and then I unexpectedly burst out in peals of laughter, the kind that causes you to tear. It was a relief and the answer to the question I had been seeking for 8 years following my decision not to return to PFI or the Diocese of Singapore. Was it obstinance or obedience, hubris or humility? I knew now it was the latter as I navigated a new season of life that as I age, my ability to compensate for my neurodivergence is waning.

 

So, I walk – for myself and with others at desert odyssey, literally on the Camino Santiago and metaphorically in other locations. A journey to discover the better version of ourselves, the version that enables us to more fully steward our gifts and passions, not in spite of but with all the foibles and frailties of our minds and bodies. There is something broken in each of us. Maybe it’s physical. Maybe it’s emotional. Maybe it’s relational. Maybe it’s mental. Maybe it’s vocational. Maybe it’s existential. On the walk, dare to name what it is. Then walk – solvitur ambulando, sanatus ambulando. Walk from a fractured past, into a re-membered present, in order to pursue a desired future! 

For desert odyssey programmes in the first half of 2026, please visit: https://desertodyssey.com/calendar/

To register your interest: https://forms.gle/idv8fDZky5WwL8PB6

To register for a programme: https://forms.gle/HinSkxfsT1txP6Ey8

For inquiries, contact: timothy.khoo@desertodyssey.com or text on +65 9615 6296

Walking at the Speed of Friendship

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“What is humanity, really, but a family of families?” ~ Vivek Murthy (US Surgeon General)

In a recent article in The Atlantic on friendship, the author notes, “In the hierarchy of relationships, friendships are at the bottom. Romantic partners, parents, children—all these come first. Friendships are unique relationships because unlike family relationships, we choose to enter into them. And unlike other voluntary bonds, such as marriages and romantic relationships, they lack a formal structure.”

This latest camino desert odyssey was with 6 friends. As it was a second passage (all having been for the first passage over the past few years, though most did not know each other), I knew each of them and have the privilege of calling them friends. It was a choice each made to be on the camino, albeit with some reserve on the part of some. Because it was voluntary, both to be together and to be walking over a hundred kilometres, it was thus enlivening. We chose to be with each other, planting one step in front of the other for close to 200,000 steps over 6 days. Perhaps, paradoxically that friendships are at the bottom of the relational hierarchy, they have the most potential for growth. I’m Exhibit A in having to live that reality especially after the significant pivot in my life in 2014.

Upon arrival in transit, a companion sojourner and I were offloaded due to a late inbound, to another flight, delaying our arrival by 6 hours. Upon arrival in Santiago, her bag arrived but mine didn’t. This is a peregrino’s (camino pilgrim’s) worse nightmare as all that’s critical for walking the camino was in the misplaced/delayed luggage. My despair led me to blurt out immaturely, “I can’t @#*^# do this! I don’t want to do this anymore!”

Walking in borrowed shoes

Lesson one in walking at the speed of friendship – gratitude and reliance. What are the odds that one of the sojourners would have an extra pair of hiking shoes that fit my feet exactly (he was the only other male in the group), with the accompanying merino wool socks to wick away moisture and lessen friction that often result in blisters? Yes, amid my devastation, I was the immensely grateful recipient of a pair of borrowed shoes (and socks). I have divested myself of much of my material possessions since August 2014, and this was another lesson in the journey of faith and often, the reliance on others for provision.

Each step I took, was a step of grateful humility. The most critical equipment on the camino – shoes and socks – were graciously provided. I was reminded that I am a sojourner here on earth. What is mine is not mine and even if it is, it’s temporal. I am merely a steward – what I have is borrowed. Walking this earth on the camino in borrowed shoes reminded me to be grateful for the gift of feet with which to be able to wear shoes, the strength to be able to walk, and the gracious generosity of a friend in whose borrowed shoes I walked.

Walking amidst intense emotions

Two days after embarking on the camino, I received notification that my bag had been located and was being delivered. In the pouring rain, I chased down the van that held my precious luggage, till it turned the corner and sped off. Through the help of a friend in the UK who was able to track the driver down (I was in Spain), I was able to receive my luggage a few hours later. In between awaiting the delivery of my bag and dinner, I received a letter from someone very dear to me that left me utterly gutted and devastated. I could not bring myself to joining the sojourners for dinner even though I was their guide.

Eventually, as the turmoil of emotions quelled, and amidst the supportive texts from the camino sojourners, I did join them for dinner. Lesson two in walking at the speed of friendship is the liberation of being accepted in whatever state I was in (and it was a terrible state), without judgement or even seeking to advise or help. Yet, precisely because of the unconditionality of love and friendship, I wanted to be better than the state I was in – for them, but more significantly, for me.

The rhythm of the camino, the rhythm of walking is that when one leg moves forward, the other lags and rests. This is also the rhythm of true friendship – the alternating of community and solitude. Ken Nerburn saliently notes, “In the same way that music is made alive by the silence that surrounds the notes, a day comes alive by the silence that surrounds our actions.” Friendship is made alive by the silence (often in solitude) that surrounds community.

Walking betwixt the question and the ‘quest-I’m-on’

The camino marker that points in the direction the pilgrim is to take is often the only means of navigating. GPS is often unavailable as the cell signal on the camino is sporadic. Even if it were available, GPS takes you on the shortest route, which is often along the road or highway – the last place you want to be walking the camino. Yet, these camino markers are only visible within a few metres of a fork or crossroads (I am convinced this is an intentional design).

Our human tendency is to want to figure the way we should go often way ahead of the time we need to know. There is a place for that in some instances, but not in all. When we are overly concerned about the future, we miss the present. We miss the beauty that surrounds us. We miss the people in our lives. We may even miss our lives even as we’re living it. The question that preoccupies us of which direction to go (when we are walking at the speed of life and friendship), way ahead of when we need to know it, blurs the present because it is too focussed on the future.

Lesson three of walking at the speed of friendship on the camino – whether of Santiago or of Life – is to be present to the present, to enjoy who and what is with us even as we make our way toward what lies ahead of us. To live the space between the question and the eventual answer is to fully immerse oneself into, what a sojourner so poignantly and insightfully put it, is the ‘quest-I’m-on’. There is more to be discovered in this space that in the eventual answer.

The lessons of friendship didn’t end with the camino. The end of the Camino Santiago is the beginning of the Camino of Life. Over the course of the month following the Camino Santiago, I was with friends, some of whom I worked with for over 2 decades, others for whom my relationship has morphed from family to friend, others whom I had lost contact with but on this trip, rekindled. Each was an expression of beauty, of unconditional friendship and love, notwithstanding the breach brought about by August 2014 in some of those relationships.

Walking at the speed of friendship is about intentionally, with fluidity, mining the essence of these friendships in spite of the inevitable bumps and detours along the way. Walking at the speed of friendship is not obscuring the reasons that led to the breach, but transcending them.

Walking at the Speed of a Child

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Peace Loving Home (Kathmandu)

“Unless you change and become like a little child….” ~ Jesus

On February 28th, 2023, what was old became new. A friendship forged 34 years ago, nurtured in shared vision, disrupted by time, distance, and drift, forged in mutual adversity, now rekindled in reconnection. My brother, Dinesh, who saw beyond his legal profession, left that security to embark on a journey over the last 3 decades to rescue prisoners’ children. When I asked a very good friend (who is in key leadership in the prison system), who are the least served in the prison, his answer, spoken without a moment’s hesitation, stunned me. I expected him to say those who are serving life sentences, or those who have medical or mental conditions that require segregation, or the habitual person who reoffends for whom the system has all but given up hope of rehabilitation. Instead, he said, “The families of prisoners, especially their children.”

Peace Loving Home (Pokhara)

Even whilst providing hygiene and others essentials, setting up prison libraries across all 76 prisons, Dinesh was drawn to the plight of the prisoner’s child. Not just children, but that one child languishing in prison with a parent (see Hope in the Ruins – https://books.friesenpress.com/Ron-Nikkel-Hope-In-the-ruins by Ron Nikkel, PFI President Emeritus). The past 3 decades have seen thousands of children rescued, placed in kin care or where there is no family, residential care (set up by Victim Support and Rehabilitation Programme, the charity that Dinesh founded). Some have grown up to become school principals, and commercial airline pilots, bankers, IT specialists, fathers and mothers, upstanding members of their communities.

I write this as a preface to pivot to offer a reflection on the title of this blog – walking at the speed of a child. In my last blog post, it was about walking at the speed of life. The refreshed look at the old in Nepal surfaced these incredible lessons:

The True Generosity of a Child 

Someone once poignantly said that true generosity is not when you have something to give, but when there’s nothing in you that wants to take. Our human nature seeks to take, to extract a transaction with every interaction. Before a certain age, even amidst social conditioning, compounded by deprivation, there is a spark of human purity for which giving without getting, exists. One child in the Peace-Loving Home in Pokhara, Nepal, all of 5 years old, had just been placed in the home at his mother’s request. With pain in her heart at being separated from her son, she selflessly knew he would have a better life outside the barbed-wired prison compound where she was serving a prison sentence. 

Art and crafts with the children as Peace Loving Home

The deprivation of every aspect of life essential for survival, made every morsel of food, every article of clothing, something to be clung to tightly. At the home, less than a half year after being rescued, he was given two origami spinning tops made by one of the team members whom I accompanied on this trip. He guarded it with his life, his eyes darting back and forth to ensure there was no threat of being dispossessed of his precious spinning tops. When he was asked to share, unbeknownst to the one who asked, he hesitatingly but willingly did. There was fear in his eyes that he might never see the spinning tops again, but there was no selfishness. True generosity – nothing in this 5-year-old needed to take. 

Walking at the speed of a child means that not every interaction need be a transaction. Not everything given needs to be reciprocated by a thing received. “Unless you change and become like a little child, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.” Yikes! The speed of a little child resides in their posture to scarcity and deprivation, which is not hoarding, but true generosity. I learnt a valuable lesson that day – a 59-year-old from a 5-year-old. 

The Transparency of a Child 

Before the age of 5 or thereabouts, a child is unable to distinguish between what he/she knows and what everyone else knows. In other words, a child believes that what he/she knows is what everyone else knows. So, a child may come back from kindergarten and announce that Gilbert died, for which his/her mother will be puzzled as to who Gilbert is. When the child is asked who Gilbert is, the quizzical look on the child’s face is because he/she is wondering why his/her mother doesn’t know. His/her assumption is that what he/she knows, his/her mother would also know. 

Machapuchare (Fishtail) Mountain

When that naivety is dispelled, the advent of secrets and opacity begins to set in. Now the child realises that what they know is not known to others unless they choose to reveal it. Secrets are kept as a realisation of the fact that I can do something out of sight, in secret, and you won’t know unless I tell you. Lies are a consequence of the knowledge that I can tell you that I didn’t do something if you hadn’t witnessed it, even if I did do it. Gossip works in much the same way because what I don’t reveal, or reveal selectively, stands the chance of not being found out by those I choose not to reveal it to, trusting that you’ll keep the secret. 

Following the events of August 30th, 2014, my secrets were revealed and the choice I had was what to do with those revealed, exposed secrets. Denial, obfuscation were options. I chose otherwise. Some people have levelled the charge that I have and am being too transparent. Some would rather not know. Others were/are genuinely worried about the consequences of being transparent. My desire to be circumspect but transparent was not bravado but honesty. As a friend said to me early in the aftermath of August 30th, honesty is not only not lying; it’s telling the whole truth. In other words, not just half the truth. 

The way Dinesh relates to the children at the home or those in kin care assumes a posture of transparency. The child knows, as do the people Dinesh speaks with, the child’s history to the extent that it’s relevant to what needs to be known. Even the children who are aware of their background, are open about it. I wonder if we were more transparent about our past, we might then not seek to create different personas to project what we would like others to see of us, rather than let them see who we are. We choose opacity over transparency. The problem is not the personas. The problem is that our personas become our personhood and what we want others to see is what we eventually see as well. The masks we wear are indistinguishable from the person we truly are, our authentic selves. We fool others and tragically, we also end up fooling ourselves. 

The team trekking on Machapuchare (Fishtail) Mountain

Selfishly, I needed this trip to be reminded of what truly matters. Someone once quipped that if knowledge is about learning, then wisdom is about unlearning. It is certainly true in my life. I have a lot less materially now, and I hope I have changed to be truly generous. I have had my masks and personas stripped away as a consequence of August 2014, and I hope my transparency offers and does not offend. I hope I am reborn, this 59-year-old child.     

Actio Sequitur Esse (Action Follows Essence):

1. What keeps you from expressing true generosity? What will it take for you not to view each interaction as a transaction, and instead allow it to be transformation for you and the other?

2. What gets in the way of allowing yourself to be transparent? Of being truly known – to others, and most importantly, to yourself? 

Walking at the Speed of Life

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“Not all who wonder, or wander are lost.” ~ JRR Tolkien

For over a thousand years, many have walked the Camino Santiago (including one I draw immense inspiration from – Francis of Assisi – who walked the Camino from Italy to Santiago, Spain in 1214). Walking the Camino as a pilgrim (or peregrino as those on the Camino Santiago are called), has been a dream for quite some time. Through the generosity of two friends whom I accompanied and curated a walking desert odyssey, the opportunity presented itself in September 2022.

The inevitable question many who know about the Camino Santiago ask is why I was personally making this pilgrimage. Apart from being companions to two wonderful friends, I didn’t have any expectations prior to, nor any revelatory discoveries following the  Camino, at least not to my conscious mind. Even as I write this, there is a deep unexplained stirring in my soul, and perhaps that is as it should be – that my finite mind has not yet, and might never, fully comprehend the breadth and depth of what I experienced. Here is my feeble attempt to mine some of the depth of what was experienced:

Walking in cadence with your heartbeat

I resonate deeply with Tolkien’s words that all who wonder, and wander are not lost. I’ll unpack this further in subsequent blogs.

An excerpt from ‘Bring on the Wonder’, a song by Susan Enan:

I don’t have the time for a drink from the cup
Let’s rest for a while till our souls catches up

Bring on the wonder
Bring on the song
I pushed you down deep in my soul for too long

Bring on the wonder
We got it all wrong
We pushed you down deep in our souls, so hang on

That is the refrain of the busy – we don’t have the time. Walking the Camino is a gift of time serving us, and not the tragic imprisonment of our souls in our serving time. A curious phrase we attribute to those who are incarcerated, yet tragically, could well be spoken of many of us who are physically free, yet not.

Given the time I had in taking about 200,000 steps on the Camino over 7 days, I did some mental calculations. With an elevated heart rate while walking of perhaps 100 beats a minute and the distance covered, taking into consideration the length of each stride, effectively, every step taken is in cadence with each heartbeat. Walking is about the only human activity that is in sync with life. When we walk, we walk at the speed of life (our heartbeat).

Even as we speak of the various issues of sustainability – environmental, climatic, natural resources – I wonder if Mahatma Gandhi’s maxim, “There is more to life than increasing its speed.” might be wisely heeded as we walk at the speed of life, for true sustainability.

When you take 200,000 steps, you also notice an obvious but overlooked phenomenon – when one foot is activated to take a step forward, the other foot lags to rest. Doing and being must be in balance.

Inhabiting a space larger than your ego can fill

A question that has been posed to me since August 2014 is why I wasn’t ‘going back’ (curious yet a pointedly accurate and ironic phrase), to some semblance of my life prior to August 2014. I discovered the answer in part on the Camino. ‘Going back’, was precisely that. ‘Going back’ was to return to that which gave me a sense of identity, the personas/masks for which my face has grown to fit, and not the other way around, i.e., the persona/mask that fit my face, my core identity.

This next dispensation of my life is about a measure of hiddenness, brought into poignant reality on the Camino. Nobody knew me. We were all peregrinos, no matter how lofty the positions we hold or not.

A beautiful parable:  a junior monk sees an older monk walking and asks, “What are you on pilgrimage for?” the junior monk asks. “I don’t know,” the elder answers, adding, “Non-knowing is most intimate.” Some of the most intimate experiences in life come when you can observe your journey without the expectation of some payoff. Outcomes are important but not always. To inhabit a space larger than one’s ego can fill, at times with more questions than answers, is daunting yet wonderfully enlivening.

Higher speeds diminish our peripheral vision 

Getting to our destination as quickly as we can is the default objective. So, we jump into our car, ride the train, hop on an airplane. Totally understandable but tragically limiting. We miss the journey and the people and things that truly sustain us. We miss life even as we’re living it.

When we drive, or even when we run, our field of vision narrows to about 90 degrees as we need to focus on the road ahead. On the Camino, walking at the speed of life, every step in cadence with the heartbeat, widens the field of vision to 270 degrees. Walking allows the canvas of our lives to be fully utilised so as to paint the vast beauty of our very lives; missed in the speed that diminishes our peripheral vision, obscuring the parts of our canvas sadly left unexplored, unpainted. We observe less, we take in less, we discover less, and consequently, we feel less, are less.

I wonder – if we decreased our speed, might we see more intentionally, listen more deliberately, speak more circumspectly? Might we slow down long enough to understand another’s points of view rather than just rush headlong into the future clinging obstinately to ours?

It would be a joy for me to accompany you on the Camino Santiago when you sense the time is right for you (look out for details on desertodyssey.com). In the meantime, I leave you with the beautiful exchange of greeting of peregrinos, “Buen Camino!” as you journey on the Camino of Life.

Actio Sequitur Esse (Action Follows Essence):

1. What does ‘walking at the speed of life’ mean for you? How will you find ways to balance being with doing?  

2. How might we divest ourselves, even momentarily, from the insatiable expectations from activities we engage in, and more so, people we interact with?

3. What parts of my life’s canvas am I missing because of my focused intent to move forward faster? 

“The gods envy us…”

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“The gods envy us. They envy us because we’re mortal, because any moment may be our last. Everything is more beautiful because we’re doomed. You will never be lovelier than you are now. We will never be here again.” ~ Homer, The Iliad

Across the street from my son’s apartment in Nova Scotia, Canada, is a cemetery. As he and I walked through the cemetery (taking these photos) in the Spring of 2022, we pondered, in a sombre yet life-affirming way, what our lives have meant, and now means to the people we hold dear and who hold us in like regard.

I am reminded of Homer’s quote almost on a daily basis. Through a series of losses on many fronts, and gains on many others; through the letting go and taking hold of, Homer’s quote provides a poignant reminder of what’s truly valuable and in a paradoxical way, an equally poignant reminder not to hold on or become too attached to precisely that which is valuable.

Here are three lessons (amongst many), that our mortality teaches us about life:

“Because here, no one judges you!”

“You will never be lovelier than you are now. We will never be here again.”

Several years ago, in the months immediately following the events of August 30th, 2014 (I write this piece as a tribute on this eighth year since), my younger son and I were on our way to pick his older brother when we received a call that he would be delayed. My son suggested that we take a drive through the old cemetery a stone’s throw from the air base that my older son was working at.

As we drove through the road covered with years of accumulated leaves, there was a tranquillity, a serenity, a peacefulness that pervaded our surroundings. Breaking the silence as he and I sat there (he can tolerate more silence than I can), I remarked, “Why is it so silent here?” Noticing his look of incredulity, I rephrased my question, “Why it is so tranquil, so serene here?” Without a moment’s hesitation, he responded, “Because here [in the cemetery] no one judges you!” I pondered if it took death before we stop judging each other.

Most religious traditions have admonitions not to judge, yet passing judgement is often the default in our relationship with each other. In my own Christian tradition, Jesus said, “Judge not, that you not be judged.” Reflecting on the words of my son, I pondered if it took death before we stop judging. Perhaps if we took seriously the words of Jesus to die to self, we might be more circumspect in our view of others and not proffer judgement?

It only lasts the duration of this lifetime

“They envy us because we’re mortal, because any moment may be our last. Everything is more beautiful because we’re doomed.”

That is the beauty and relief death provides – we don’t have to carry the issues of this life forever. Imagine the grief from the loss of a loved one, the debilitating weight of a struggle with mental health, a crippling illness or chronic pain, or a failure for which you are labelled with. Imagine being a god and having to live this fragile and broken existence with no end.

Because we know that this mortal life will have a definite and definitive end, we can live this mortal existence with a sense of a redemptive reality in this life and know that this too will eventually pass – the good and the bad. Hence, death gives meaning to life. Everything is more beautiful because we’re doomed.

The story goes that when a newspaper mistakenly printed his obituary in 1888, the Swedish entrepreneur and inventor Alfred Nobel, very much alive, was so horrified to see himself remembered as the “tradesman of death” for his inventions of dynamite that he decided to devote his remaining years to supporting the most life-affirming endeavours of the human spirit. And so, the Nobel Prize was born. Alfred Nobel redeemed himself because he knew his life would end and the erroneous obituary was a stark and beautiful reminder of that poignant reality. Death clarifies life.

“Tell me, what will you do with your one wild and precious life?” ~ Mary Oliver

“Everything is more beautiful because we’re doomed.”

This quote from Mary Oliver is yet another that has gripped my heart and generated in my mind myriad thoughts of what it means to live with a deep sense of intentionality. Intentionality borne from the fact that I have only this one wild and precious life. In the volunteer work I continue to do in prison, there is a refreshing honesty that incarceration, but more significantly, failure that resulted in incarceration, has meant a momentary squandering of that wild and precious life. I totally relate to that with the events (leading to August 30th, 2014) that precipitated the squandering of my one wild and precious life, at least I hope, momentarily.

George Eliot, the author of the novel Middlemarch, concludes that novel with this beautiful ode to the people who, as she puts it, “Rest in the unvisited tombs of the world.” It’s a beautiful sentiment. What she’s really trying to say is that these people who led hidden lives, whose acts were unhistorical and maybe aren’t remembered by you or me, were the ones who contributed to what she calls the growing good of the world.

And I think that is such a powerful sentiment for us all to remember. Even if we might not be remembered by history, even if our tombs or niches may one day be unvisited, we can still contribute to this world in a positive way and lead meaningful lives, expressed in purposeful ways, not in spite of, but precisely because we’re ‘doomed’.

ACTIO SEQUITUR ESSE

  1. Compose your Eulogy. Send it to me at timothy.khoo@desertodyssey.com, and let’s discuss via Zoom or in person. It would be a privilege!
  1. Find a friend and compose a Eulogy for each other by interviewing each other’s family, friends, and work colleagues. Share the Eulogy you wrote with each other based on those interviews. Is the way I am living my one wild and precious life reflected in the positive impact I am making on those around me? If not, what am I going to do with the rest of my days?

On Being Real ~ The Tale of the Satin Rabbit (Based on the book ‘The Velveteen Rabbit’ by Margery Williams)

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“THERE was once a velveteen rabbit, and in the beginning he was really splendid. He was fat and bunchy, as a rabbit should be; his coat was spotted brown and white, he had real thread whiskers, and his ears were lined with pink sateen.”*

Pre 2014, I was the velveteen rabbit, or in my case, the satin rabbit – I was splendid in my smugness. Admired in both the organisation and institution I was part of. Sure, there were detractors, but for the most part, I looked good and acted in accord with that persona. There is nothing wrong with a persona. Many of us have multiple personas. The problem is when our personas become our personhood. The problem is when it comes time to put down our personas, we can’t because they have been fused with our personhood. To put down one would be to put down the other. In “Shooting an Elephant” by George Orwell, this line gripped me like a vice – “He wore a mask, and his face grew to fit it.” That described me to a T.

My persona was too beautiful to be examined or excised. It was to be preserved and perpetuated. Until August 30th, 2014. Then the fact of my incongruence was exposed. That beneath the pristine exterior was a pathetic interior. But then began the journey of being real….

“What is REAL?” asked the Rabbit one day, when they were lying side by side near the nursery fender, before Nana came to tidy the room. “Does it mean having things that buzz inside you and a stick-out handle?” “Real isn’t how you are made,” said the Skin Horse. “It’s a thing that happens to you. When a child loves you for a long, long time, not just to play with, but REALLY loves you, then you become Real.” “Does it hurt?” asked the Rabbit. “Sometimes,” said the Skin Horse, for he was always truthful. “When you are Real you don’t mind being hurt.” “Does it happen all at once, like being wound up,” he asked, “or bit by bit?” “It doesn’t happen all at once,” said the Skin Horse. “You become. It takes a long time. That’s why it doesn’t happen often to people who break easily, or have sharp edges, or who have to be carefully kept. Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in the joints and very shabby. But these things don’t matter at all, because once you are Real you can’t be ugly, except to people who don’t understand….. once you are Real you can’t become unreal again. It lasts for always.”

That’s why it’s so hard to be real or to even want to be real. It means being loved to the point of breaking and having the sharp edges sanded down, and not having to be carefully kept or viewed. Being real means being vulnerable. But the fear of being judged, of being looked at for who we really are and not who we would like others to see us, prevents us from being real.

Sometimes it hurts in the process of becoming real. Who would rather not be loved for their beauty than for their banality? Yet, the persona that is not congruent with our personhood drives us further into perpetuating an image of who we want others to see then of the real us. In Greek mythology, Narcissist fell in love not with himself, but with an image of himself – a critical distinction. We want others to love the image we project, and the greatest tragedy to emanate from that is that we then come to believe that this image we project is who we really are. This was me leading up to August 30th, 2014.

He longed to become Real, to know what it felt like; and yet the idea of growing shabby and losing his eyes and whiskers was rather sad. He wished that he could become it without these uncomfortable things happening to him.

The exposure of August 30th, 2014 was what I clearly would have not wanted to have to happen in the journey to becoming real. Yet, it was that very posture of not wanting uncomfortable things to happen that necessitated those uncomfortable things happening. As I have mused in other reflections, August 30th, 2014 was a day of grace for me. Painful for me and as much for those I loved and those who loved me. Could it have happened with less collateral damage to others? Yes, it could have, but the propensity to self-deception and justification knows very few boundaries. Real happened for me through the agency of uncomfortable things.

Weeks passed, and the little Rabbit grew very old and shabby, but the Boy loved him just as much. He loved him so hard that he loved all his whiskers off, and the pink lining to his ears turned grey, and his brown spots faded. He even began to lose his shape, and he scarcely looked like a rabbit any more, except to the Boy. To him he was always beautiful, and that was all that the little Rabbit cared about. He didn’t mind how he looked to other people, because the nursery magic had made him Real, and when you are Real shabbiness doesn’t matter.

 In these ‘weeks’ that have passed – over 7 years since August 2014, I have traded ‘persona’ for ‘essentialis’. For me, it has meant scarcely looking like a satin rabbit, but increasingly more like a shabby one. “When you are Real, shabbiness doesn’t matter”, at least to people who matter. Those who mind don’t matter, and those who matter won’t mind. To those who matter, the essentialis is what being real is about, and that’s what matters. The heart of the matter is the matter of the heart.

“I am the nursery magic Fairy,” she said. “I take care of all the playthings that the children have loved. When they are old and worn out and the children don’t need them any more, then I come and take them away with me and turn them into Real.” “Wasn’t I Real before?” asked the little Rabbit. “You were Real to the Boy,” the Fairy said, “because he loved you. Now you shall be Real to every one.”

I cannot and steadfastly refuse to minimise or negate who I was in the years preceding August 2014. So much of it was wonderful and beautiful and enlivening. I was real before, but only to those who really and truly knew me. I was ‘unreal’ to those I wanted to project an image of what I wanted them to see and to believe of me. How do I know this? A defining experience which occurred exactly 7 years, 7 months, and 7 days from August 30th, 2014, happened, in of all places, a prison where I spent 25 years in a full-time capacity and 36 years and counting, volunteering.

It was a correctional unit that housed men who have taken a decision to renounce their gang affiliation, of men wanting to become real. I was invited to address them and at the end of that session, the Office-in-Charge asked if anyone wanted to say anything of encouragement to me. One of those who spoke up said he had met me 11 years ago when I was then Executive Vice President of the organisation that served those imprisoned and their families. In his words, “When I met you 11 years ago, you were confident. Today I see and hear you again, and now you are REAL.”

*(paragraphs in italics are excerpts from ‘The Velveteen Rabbit’ by Margery Williams)

ACTIO SEQUITUR ESSE (Action Follows Essence – A Call to Action):

1. In what ways have my desire to be affirmed, adulated, applauded, and appreciated, stood in the way of my being real?

2. How might I summon the courage to be real, even at the risk of being judged or even rejected?

December 26th, 2020

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One of the desert odyssey sojourners posed a question as to how we might see the juxtaposition of this pandemic and the meaning of Christmas.

We’ve long forgotten that the first Christmas was more akin to what we’re experiencing now than what we’ve taken for granted in recent years.

Foreign occupation then (Romans), foreign occupation now (Covid-19); martyr of the innocence then, deaths of so many innocents now; fear and anxiety of the Holy Family then, our fear and anxiety now; separated from family then by having to flee to Egypt, separation from family now for many who are refugees and those of us who have family overseas.

Poignant reminder that life begins in the dark…..

Reflections of a Wo(a)ndering Sojourner

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Sitting at Ya Kun (a local coffee place), because I couldn’t get into a Christmas Musical at a local church. Reminded in a small way of that first Christmas where there was no room in the inn.
 
A week ago, for the first time since I was 21 (33 years ago), I am without earthly possessions. 3 years ago I gave up my car, and as of a week ago, our apartment was sold. Dispossessed of possessions – yet possessing everything.
 
One of the Desert Odyssey sojourners sent this very stark photo, taken in the Middle East, not far from the first Christmas ~ Bethlehem circa 2018. May our hearts be for those for whom Christ came – the marginalised, the downtrodden, the dispossessed, the poor.
 
May we too be poor – not necessarily materially. True poverty is non-possessiveness, of things and of people.
 
Love deeply, hold loosely, and experience the depth and liberation of the unconditionality of Love to us and in turn us for others.