on the way to here - Preface
I had no idea that a phone conversation in May 1994 would lead to a book twenty-three years later. My friend Diane said at one point, “That doesn’t sound like you. You’re putting yourself down.” I still do not know what prompted her to say that, but I pondered her comment for a couple of days and then wrote the reflection that I call my signature piece. “In Response to a Comment from Diane” has been its only title all these years.
Two tiny particles of matter find their way to one another … and I begin. I cross the chasm from nothingness to being. This was my only chance at existence. I have won the greatest lottery of all.
Called by Life to the banquet of all that is. Called, however, to more than simple being. Called to know.
And to know that I know. Called to love. And to know that I love.
When did I first know that I am me? Was it the same day that I knew that you are you? What a comfort it was to realize that I am not alone.
The whole journey has been one long introduction to myself. At first I was not sure that I wanted to be this one. Why couldn’t I be that one? Or that one?
Somewhere on the way to here I decided to be me. I even became excited about being me. I came to love this intense, introverted, extroverted, shy, gregarious human being who never ceases to be amazed that there is life, and who is so profoundly grateful that he was invited to the feast.
Thank you, God, for me.
The thoughts expressed in this short piece must have come from some deep place inside me. The words have stayed with me ever since, and I have shared them verbally with numerous friends and even total strangers. People I had never met before have requested a copy. And so many of them have asked, “Has that been published?”
However, you do not publish a book because of one short piece of writing. That piece was followed by so many others. Over these past twenty-three years, most of them in retirement, I have written reflections on a wide variety of subjects, and I have sent letters to friends that often touched on matters of universal interest and concern. Though these reflections and letters were not written with publication in mind, a growing number of people have been telling me that they should be put into a book. It has taken me a long time to agree with them. You may decide if they were right.
An innate philosophical bent, plus several courses in philosophy and theology, have left me with a preoccupation with the spiritual dimension of life, and this comes through very naturally in my writing. I cannot write without wanting to get below the surface level to the deeper realities that we can so easily miss. The good stuff is there if we pause long enough to taste and relish it. Some people tell me that I manage to put into words things they feel at times but cannot fully express. It makes me happy to be able to do that for them. We all have different gifts - gifts that we are meant to share.
In his book Report to Greco, Nikos Kazantzakis writes: “Blowing through heaven and earth, and in our hearts and the heart of every living thing, is a gigantic breath - a great Cry - which we call God.”1
I think of that breath as the Source of all the creativity in humankind.
The breath and the Cry are there in all of us. We give expression to them in our own unique ways, often unaware that we are.
If any words of mine hold special meaning for you, please direct your thanks to the One from whom the breath and all other gifts come.
Reprinted with the permission of Touchstone, a division of Simon & Schuster, Inc.
from Report To Greco by Nikos Kazantzakis. Translation by P.A. Bien. Copyright
1961 by Helen Kazantzakis. Copyright renewed 1993 by Helen Kazantzakis.
English translation copyright 1965 by Simon & Schuster, Inc.. All rights reserved.