One of the many truly great lines from famed song-writing team Burt Bacharach and Hal David can be found in the song ‘Knowing When to Leave’, from their 1968 musical ‘Promises, Promises’ It’s actually two lines, with the second consisting of a single, powerful word. The lines referred to begin only 6 beats into the first verse: ‘Knowing when to leave may be the smartest thing anyone can learn. Go!’
This is directly followed up by yet another powerful phrase, with no mincing of words: ‘I’m afraid my heart, isn’t very smart!’.
One of the most difficult things in life is not only knowing when to leave, but actually going through with it. Sometimes, although it may not certainly feel to us like it at the time, it’s so very great when we are forced to get on with things and simply, ‘Go!’
Any of you who have gone through a major move or change in life know the feeling all too well. You accept, ahead of time, that it’s going to take place, but you need to keep reminding yourself over and over and over again that it’s going to actually happen. You had better get used to this reality and get on with things. Start packing the boxes, so to speak. It’s absolutely never simple or easy. If you’ve found some fantastic way to make it so, you should probably write a book (or at least a blog), and share this wisdom with the rest of us.
I can almost hear the groans of our adult children in the background, having heard the following tale a few times, but it seemed to help them through the years when they were young, with facing a change that lay ahead, including a few memorable moves and changes in Congregations we’ve served with.
Many years ago I heard an interview from a noted mountain-climber, telling of a major climb that had involved a whole team. I can’t recall his name, or what mountain it was (sorry), but this was his story:
Soon after arriving at the mountain, after years of dreaming and countless months of planning and organizing an extremely challenging climb, the man and his team set off on a long and dangerous ascent. They had enough supplies to last them for over a week, and were well equipped with high-tech, sleeping bags and tiny tents in which they could tie off and sleep in.
Although it wasn’t in the forecast, a little more than halfway up the mountain, they were hit with an unexpected, wicked wind and snow storm. They were forced to quickly pitch and tie up their tents, all close to one another’s. The storm grew in its intensity, and lasted, unrelenting, day after day, night after night.
In all, they were forced to remain in the same location for a full week, with the dangerous storm not abating until the 7th day. It seemed spiritually poetic to some of them, when the calmness finally arrived and the sun shone, like a holy 7th day of rest.
There was disappointment among them all that they would no longer be able to ascend to the peak, with their rations and oxygen stretched to the limit. Then, quite unexpectedly, an emotion welled up in this experienced climber, as well as in some of his team members: They found they had become somewhat attached to the coziness and safety of their tents, as well as this location where they had found a meagre shelter from the storm. They were actually feeling a little sad in leaving!
The climber, during the radio interview, said that the experience had taught him one of the most valuable lessons about life that he had ever experienced. This was that there is almost always some sort of an emotional sadness to leaving or of letting go. Whether it was a location, an impossible relationship, a job, (and his list went on a bit, as any of us could also imagine) it was never predictably simple emotionally.
So it was when we found ourselves leaving a Congregation we’d been with for almost 7 years, last June. There was time to pack up and get set on a new path to follow, but in the three months leading up to the departure, there was none-the-less considerable pain in the waiting and in the hesitating in trusting what lay ahead.
Our three daughters share the tradition of having their middle names being a word reflecting deep blessings that everyone alive can hopefully choose to aspire to. Shaelah, our eldest, has ‘Grace’ as her middle name. Thaesha’s middle name is ‘Hope’ and Keirah’s is ‘Faith’.
Although it was painful leaving, thoughts, of grace, hope, faith, love peace, endurance and forgiveness gave us plenty to consider when, emotionally, the going was rough.
With the announcement this afternoon that our province, Ontario, is headed into the third emergency lock-down in a little over a year, we have a glimpse once again of letting go in so many ways to things we take so for granted. There’s no turning back. Most of us had a strong hope that the 2nd lockdown would be the last, and that we could slowly more and more begin to return to a pre-Covid way of life.
Having said this, while being aware of this anticipated return to normality, we all are hugely aware that this dark virus is slowly spreading around the ‘3rd world’, so to speak, at a staggering speed and viciousness. This shadow of awareness will call on us to encourage, and help fund the availability of vaccinations everywhere.
There are so many things and situations that countless people are swept up in right now, and so many instances of letting go are involved. As heard a few times on today’s radio, letting go of the ‘freedom’ to shop is painful for some, especially for the small shop owners and their employees and families, but this is mild, by far. Letting go of being able to graduate with friends is so painful. Letting go of heading off to see some friends is so difficult, but letting go of loved ones who have died is obviously the most painful of all. As this is happening in historic, epic proportions, one cannot imagine the immensity of the suffering that continues every moment in this way.
We live on a small crescent, and across from us is a fenced, sidewalk path that is our neighbourhood’s entrance to the northern point of ‘The Coves’ conservation area. Since the beginning of Covid times, a little over a year ago, there has been a notable increase in pedestrian traffic here, with daylight hours often seeing another few people, often with their pet dogs, passing by every 3 or 4 minutes. (We’re lucky to see a vehicle every 15 minutes.) Most of the time, everyone is smiling, including their pets.
We know that some things, because of the Covid crisis, are over, or changed, or gone for good. At the same time that huge triumphs have been realized, devastating mistakes have also been made. It’s much like our personal lives, if we are simply human.
Driving one our daughters home a short while ago, I saw a young, neighbourhood family ‘hanging out’ on their front lawn, with the dad and a daughter playing catch with a softball and gloves, with the mom laughing along with their 2 younger children as they watched. It was such a beautiful snap-shop of a moment in time, of the other side of what is also happening right now. A special time opens up during a lockdown for some to have family moments that never would have been possible otherwise. Base ball game’s cancelled? Let’s head to the front lawn and have some fun! (We fitted our basketball with a fresh net and purchased a fresh ball before the stores closed today.)
As much as most of us will be somewhat haunted by some of our experiences during the past year, in a somewhat complicated way, will somewhat be sad when certain elements of this year’s long crisis have passed. It hasn’t been all bad, and some particular moments and memories and realizations will forever remain precious in our memories in in our very selves. We will be so thankful for this.
For whatever reason, on this beautiful, warm and sunny spring day, it is so wonderful to realize, that soon it will be that the vaccinations are completed, and the masks gone, and the hugs and closeness is back, and the choirs are singing, and the musicals are alive, and the playgrounds are free to play in again, and the restaurant and theatres are filled, and it will feel so, so fine!
Today is the sadness of leaving the ‘light lockdown’ as we head into the ‘stay at home’ realm and what that means to each of us in terms of freedom. We are committed to 4 weeks of this. Our boxes are packed and ready to go, with no turning back now.
So while we’re in this, let us remember to be thankful for a ‘home’ we have to stay at. And grateful for and to those around us who have been our companions for the last 2 stay-at-home periods. And thankful for the chance, for one last 4 week period of time and grace, to make the best of things and to do what you wished you had done through the last ‘stay-at-home’ period. Hopefully, it will be your last chance to do it in this way, because this will be the last huge lock-down.
Eventually, with solid certainty, when these 4 weeks are over, it will be different. The immunization efforts will more and more transcend the despair, and in a few more months ahead for us, at least in this part of the world, we will once again be free. Free to truly celebrate!
Knowing When to Leave – piano improv.