Dear Ed (not Ed Gulley), thank for your message to me this morning. It was beautiful and wrenching at the same time. I thank you for reaching out to thank me for my work, which you kindly say has given you pleasure and hope.
Today, I hope to give you more hope.
You were writing in response to an essay I wrote yesterday, it was called “Let Us Begin Again,” and it was inspired by St. Francis of Assisi and his writings, and by his statement at the end of his life to the Friars: “Let us begin again, for up to now, we have done nothing.”
You wrote:
“See, I am a man of failure. I have accomplished nothing and struggled for 40 years from Major Depressive Disorder. Many days, I have asked God to take my life as I am tired. Tired of the lack of humanity in this country, of compassion, of service to your fellow human. The leader of this country has worn me down with the constant drivel, of hate, hate, hate.”
But, he wrote, “I read your post today about St. Francis and realized that I need to get outside of this constant dark mental oppression because I too have done nothing. Your article hit me dead on. And if gave me spark of hope in a dark world. And really, hope is all I have left. Without it, there is a large void...”
Ed, thank you, your letter touched me deeply for several reasons.
One is because you grasped across time and space and pain the true message of St. Francis’s life and beliefs, and two, because you so beautifully and intuitively captured his idea of the reconstruction of life, something open to all of us, whatever our faith.
This what St. Francis was all about, and how overjoyed he would have been to see this letter and to know that he touched a soul far across the continuum of time and saw his pain and perhaps saved him. I’m not a joiner, if I were a Christian, I would probably be angry and frustrated today, I am not a Christian, but powerfully drawn to the moral and compassionate messages fo the founders of the faith.
They would perhaps not be happy with what has been done to their religion today, and in our country.
I have to be honest, I am just the messenger here, Ed, you are generous, but the message was all about St. Francis, perhaps the most beloved priest in the history of Christianity
I love that you read his message so perfectly.
He was not denigrating himself (or you) when he said he had done nothing, he was simply giving birth and rebirth to himself and showing us what he called reconstruction, the building of a new life and the path to a meaningful life.
He was re-committing himself to a good life, again, and again, and again.
St. Francis lived a life of service and it sounds like you are choosing the same path. If this happened because of my blog and anything I wrote her, i am overjoyed to. This morning, my wife and I sat in the car and I read your message to her and she just shook her head and said, “that is so wonderful.” And it is.
For those of you who don’t know, Major Depressive Disorder is a very painful and difficult kind of mental illness. It is a mood disorder that causes a persistent feeling of sadness and loss of interest in life. It affects how one thinks, feels and behaves and can lead to a wide variety of emotional and physical difficulties. People who suffer from MDD may have trouble carrying out day-to-day activities, and sometimes one may feel as if life is not worth living.
Ed, you are a brave and worthy man, if there is a God, and he was listening to you, I doubt he would want to take you away. The God I would love to believe in would blow a lot of warmth and courage into your soul, and send you out on your journey. He would fill your cup with hope.
As is happens, I have a close friend with this disorder, and she has often thought of taking her own life. She has learned to live with this disorder by committing herself to a life of service, and by writing and painting every day of her life. This has grounded her, and taught her how to live in a positive way. She no longer thinks of killing herself.
Ed, my wish for you is that find the reconstruction – the rebirth – that Francis wrote about so often. He believed in worshipping Lady Poverty, that is he was devoted to nothing but service, never money or power. His happiness came, in a way, from his very low view of himself, he called it “lowliness.”
He wrote that there was power in being a “somebody,” but that there was great truth and meaning in being a nobody, in letting go of a life filled with things other people told him he ought to have, including conventional ideas about happiness and security.
Francis’s very radical idea was to choose weakness instead of strength, vulnerability instead of righteousness, truth instead of practicality, honesty instead of influence. He stood in quite remarkable opposition to Westernized versions of the gospel and to the wealth and surely, he would be horrified at the power of the wealth-and-success oriented electronic Church of today.
We cannot change the world, wrote Francis, except as we have changed ourselves.
We can only give who we are and what we are.
We can only offer to others what we have been given.
We can’t just pray, we must be the prayer.
We can’t only have questions, we must be the answers.
He had enormous differences with his Church, but he never argued with the Church or railed against it, his response to arrogance and corruption was to do good, better.
He was a gentle prophet, not a warrior. His passion was to care for the poor, to be of service.
His witness has been to call and challenge people of good heart and intention for more than eight centuries, and here, Ed, he seems to have reached out and touched you. He offered nothing but the call to life.
I hope that you choose to walk on that kind of path, in your own way and time. I am not looking to be a priest or a monk, but his message inspires and encourages me, he lived in much harder times than ours, and believed that doing good was far superior than arguing about what good was.
I sense that this would fit you from your letter. You and I are different in many ways, I suspect, and similar in others. We have been broken, and we have chosen to begin again.
Up to now, we have done nothing.
I wish you great luck and hope you keep me informed. We have begun a dialogue, you and I, and I, for one, I am morally bound to keep it going. And I want to know how your story turns out.
What a miracle to give rebirth to ourselves, to do good, better. Again and again.
Peace and compassion to you, Ed, on your hero journey. I am hopeful of hearing from you down the road.
I got a new and updated Mansion residents list today, this is the list of residents who would like to receive your letters, messages and photographs.
You can write to them as often as you wish c/o The Mansion, 11 S.Union Avenue, Cambridge, N.Y., 12816.
We have done a lot of good for the Mansion residents, but I think the purest and most enduring good may come from the letters and messages you have been sending them.
Many of the residents tell me their letter writers are among their closest friends, and they wait all day for the mail to come. This is a selfless task, there are often no rewards, sometimes no responses are possible. Sometimes people get sick or go to nursing homes or die.
I can never tell you when that happens, it is agains the law.
Some can answer, some can’t, some can hear the letters but not see them others forget the letters they get seconds after they get them. Giving is the best reward, perhaps the only one.
I have been supplying the residents with a steady stream of envelopes, notecards and stamps so they can reply if they are able.
One of the most difficult things for people in elderly care is their sense of disconnection from the outside world, the feeling of being left behind and forgotten, torn away from everything they know and love. Your messages have transformed this isolation, they feel known, cared for, still recognized as human beings.
Here is the new and updated list as of July 10, 2018.
Bob, Allan, Winnie, Jean, Art, Tim, John D., Alanna, Peggie, Ellen, Joan, Brenda, Jackie, Sylvie, Alice, Madeline, Mary, Blance, Bill, William H., John K., Diane, Helen, Debbie, Dottie, Ruth, Kenneth, Gerry, Guerda, Wayne, Matt.
Sylvie is working hard to respond to your messages, she sometimes gets the addresses wrong, and considers the messages prayers. Ruth is in need of letters of love and comfort now.
Thanks so much for your letters, they mean more than you might now, I think it was the best idea we have had.
My Mansion work is entirely supported by donations and contributions, large and small. You can contribute by sending a check to the Gus Fund, c/o Jon Katz, P.O. Box 205, Cambridge, N.Y., 12816, or via Paypal, [email protected].
We are keeping good alive.
We are doing good, better, in the tradition of St. Francis.
There are just a few items left on the Mansion Amazon Wish List, we are seeking new tablecloths for the Mansion dining room. Just need four more sets. Take a look.
Toward the end of his life, St. Francis told the friars who were devoted to him, “Let us begin again, for up to now we have done nothing.” They were to become his most quoted words.
I have plunged into the writings and teachings of St. Francis this year, and it’s been a rich swim.
His life (1182-1226) was about bringing hope to darkness, perhaps the true creative and spiritual challenge of his time and our time.
It is odd for me to be so connected to a Catholic Pope who took the name of Francis, and who reflects his teachings in so any ways. The rise of Christianity brought a great deal of hope into a dark world, as well as bloodshed and division, and today, so many of us are looking for hope in our Age Of Anxiety.
It is important for me to look backwards for the guides and inspirations that move and shape my life today, I tend to find them in the past rather than the present.
I think that quote of St. Francis is one of the most powerful of the many things St. Francis wrote and said. This iconic prophet’s sense of beginning again, towards the beginning, or the middle, or the end of my life, at the end of a passage, or an era, or a journey, in the middle of fair and failure, when I just want to rest, or shed the past, or let go of disappointment, is profound and inspiring.
I see this as a call to rebirth, renewal, a kind of personal reconstruction, for this what I said to myself just a few years ago when I came to see my choice was rebirth or a kind of living and loveless death. Let me begin again, because up to now I have done nothing.
I hope that is what I will say at every mark or passage of my life. This is the call to rebirth, to self-awareness. We are small, we don’t matter all that much.
Francis was described as a man of all seasons, especially in winter and times of darkness, and conflict and death, when many of us don’t know how, or even want, to begin again. But that, of course, is when it most matters, that is the very time to give birth to ourselves again: in this vast and complex world, and up to now, I have done nothing.
We cannot change the world, wrote Francis, except and insofar as we have changed ourselves.
We can only give who we are and what we are.
We can only offer to others what we have been given.
We can’t just pray, we must be the prayer.
We can’t only have questions, we must be answers.
Francis, wrote Richard Rohr in his book “Hope Against Darkness,” had no real agenda for social reform or compassion. He “just moved outside the system of illusion,” wrote Rohr, ignoring it rather than fighting it, just doing good better.
Francis said the best criticism of the bad and the hateful is the practice of the good and the better.
I live in the system of illusion today, and I believe the best answer to the hatred and argument bubbling all around me is to do good, better. I rallied myself to begin again, for up to now, I had done nothing.
And this is what I can say to myself today, and at every turning point of life. This is my call to life.
Francis, I believe, discovered the gift of reconstruction. He knew how to begin again, and again and again.
I suspect we all wonder how we might approach death, and so I asked Ed Gulley if he wanted to talk about it, and he did.
He wants to find a way to be productive and creative, and to find peace before he dies. He has given up on the idea that he has a lot of time left, and believes there is a book about his cancer, and how he responded to it.
I’ve told him that is not a book I can do, but I know how he feels. I came into the room yelling “Wake up, you crazy old bastard,” and he shouted back at me. He is always up for bullshit, no matter how bad he feels. I thought the hospice aide might faint.
Ed never want to be pitied or treated like someone who is sick. That destroys his pride.
Ed is asleep for most of the day now, and although he wants very much to sketch, he sometimes lack the strength and focus to do his work the way he wants.
As he loses strength and function, he is increasingly humiliated by his dependence on others for the most intimate and personal things. I think in so many ways that is the most difficult thing for him. As often happens in these kinds of situation he expresses his anger and frustration at the one he knows and trusts the most – in this case, Carol.
She wrote about this on her blog today. Ed has been turning away from her and avoiding her and asking to be left alone. It is, of course, the disease speaking, brain cancer affects perspective and emotion, and Carol, in addition to everything else she faces, has to bear the brunt of his frustration at being unable to do the things he has always done.
Ed and Carol are very close, and we all know how much he loves her. So does she, but it is hard to bear.
The role of the caregiver is so difficult, and so complex. “I know I should not feel bad for doing what is best for him, but that is easier said that done,” wrote Carol. For sure. There is nothing normal or easy about her life now.
I sat with Carol for an hour today, Ed fell asleep just after our video, which he insists he wants to do. It was good talking to her. We talked about how just a few weeks ago, the two of them were out milking cows and farming. Her whole world has been turned upside down.
I am in a new for more regular routine, I come in the afternoon every day – with a book sometimes, and some food that Ed likes – and I talk to Ed, sometimes read to him, sometimes just sit with him while he sleeps. Sometimes Carol sits down and we talk. I think the afternoons are becoming quieter and more peaceful.
I think that is good for Ed and Carol. The hospice home aide comes every day in the afternoon now, that is essential for Carol, but hard for Ed to accept. Another sign to him of losing his dignity and freedom of movement.
Ed loves company and there is a lot of company, and many people stay a long time. Talking for more than a few minutes is exhausting for him now, and as he said in the video, it takes him longer and longer to recover from fatigue.
I think the truth is that he is always tired now, every day, most of all day, I see it during the videos as well, although the seem to rouse him and bring up clarity and thought.
Today, I brought strawberries and some sweet corn. This is the first day sweet corn has gone on sale this season, that’s a big day in farm country, and I brought six ears for Ed and Carol, and also some strawberries.
Tomorrow, I’m bring some bananas. Ed’s mind is sometimes still quite clear, his body gets weaker every day. He is no longer comfortable sitting up.
