Hope, Rilke, and Phil

A man named Phil introduced me to the poetry of Rainer Maria Rilke, the poet that Joanna Macy quoted in this week’s OnBeing Hope Portal. Here’s the poem once again:

Quiet friend who has come so far,

feel how your breathing makes more space around you.
Let this darkness be a bell tower
and you the bell. As you ring,

what batters you becomes your strength.
Move back and forth into the change.
What is it like, such intensity of pain?
If the drink is bitter, turn yourself to wine.

In this uncontainable night,
be the mystery at the crossroads of your senses,
the meaning discovered there.

And if the world has ceased to hear you,
say to the silent earth: I flow.
To the rushing water, speak: I am.¹

It was at least fifteen years ago that I met Phil. At the time I knew him simply as a participant in the congregation I was serving at the time. But I really came to know him when we, and two others, sort of fell in together into a rather unique small group. It wasn’t a “Bible Study” even though we usually met in my office. Instead it was four men digging deep to try to grow in deep wisdom. I had never been a part of a group like it before then and still haven’t since. We read and discussed a wide variety of books from people like Joanna Macy and Richard Rohr. We spent months going slowly through a book called Nature and the Human Soul by Bill Plotkin. We studied stages of faith development from James Fowler and so many others. But we always kept coming back to the poetry of Rilke. Rilke’s words wove in between and around all the others we read to the point that I cannot hear something from Rilke without thinking about this group.

But this poem? This one made me think specifically about Phil.

Phil was never the loud or demonstrative type. He was level, calm, and quiet. But within his life experience, there was so much. Before I came to know him, Phil was an explorer and adventurer in many senses of the words. He was a mountaineer, outdoorsman, and sailor and he traveled extensively soaking up the beauty of this world. He was also an explorer of faith and belief - at various points he was a Lutheran, a Buddhist, an agnostic, and then a part of a Presbyterian church. He read widely and soaked up the wisdom of people across genres, ages, and perspectives.

People were drawn to Phil. There was something to the wisdom and grace that he exuded. In the last few months of his life, as he was in a hospice bed, there was rarely a time that people were not filling his room just soaking up his wisdom and his sharings. I’ve never personally seen anything like it. But even before his death, people were drawn to him and to what his life and his experiences had grown in him. And, like breathing, Phil was steady and calming and life-giving to others.

Phil died in 2017 after a long journey with Multiple Sclerosis. When I first met Phil several years before then, he was already well into the progression of his disease. Initially, he was still walking with the assistance of a walker but as the years progressed he had to transition to a wheelchair. But even as MS was slowly taking his body, his mind was as sharp as it ever was. While he, at times, lamented (deservedly so) how his body was failing him, he also continued to be like the bell tower that Rilke wrote of. He didn’t let the MS destroy his hope, his desire for community, or his thirst for wisdom and growth. Even as the MS rang continually in his body, he let his life ring louder. While it battered him, it allowed his strength to be shown so much more. And with the understandable bitterness of the hand life dealt him, he did turn it to wine - to be a sweet gift and blessing to others. Thats not to say that Phil was simply a “always look on the bright side of life” and whistling type of guy (Monty Python and the Life of Brian reference). He was honest and real and vulnerable about what he was going through and what was ahead for him. But he didn’t let it define him. He, to use a reference from Stranger than Fiction (which MaryAnn and I discussed earlier this week) continued to choose to live in every way that he could. And he continued to work to better the life of others - as a mentor, a friend, and an activist continuing to speak for justice and against oppression. There’s a video below of him from a rally in Florida following the Citizens United Supreme Court ruling.

The disease was able to be slowed somewhat but it was ultimately not containable. No matter what would happen, MS would slowly take more and more away from Phil’s body and his way of living. But Phil embraced the mystery that lay ahead. Phil sought such a diversity of wisdom in his life - religious, philosophical, practical - and it nurtured him. He was not afraid of the mystery of death but approached it with curiousity and hope for what would be. And he invited others into that journey with him. He was unceasingly curious.

When the disease had finally progressed to a place that felt like a tipping point, Phil made the choice to let go. I was in a hospital room with him and one other guy from that small group when he told us of this decision. We had, in fact, just read a Rilke poem, and Phil shared the decision that he had come to and that he had told to his siblings earlier in the day. There was a resoluteness and a peace in how he shared it. He didn’t know how long it would be but he knew that it would not be long. He would move away from the treatments that had slowed the progression and begin the journey, however long it would take, into the mystery of death and see what meaning would be there both in the coming months and in whatever was beyond.

Over the next few months, I witnessed a beautiful death. Phil entered into death in the way that he wanted. He wanted to let life take its course and he wanted to be surrounded by others through that time. While he was in a clinical hospital bed in his hospice care, his room was a place of light and life. Like I shared earlier, it was a rare time that people weren’t filling his room in deep conversation with him.

On February 22, 2017, I wrote a single sentence in my journal...Sitting with Phil and Rick probably for the last time just the three of us. Reading a poem from Rilke.

I don’t remember which poem it was - I’m ok with the mystery of not knowing. But I remember that rare time in those last few months for him when it was just the three of us in that room sharing together, doing the same as we had done many times before (even as our fourth was unfortunately not able to be there that day).

I saw Phil two more times after that before he died. One was the next day when he was being recorded by one of the church youth group leaders sharing some of his life-earned wisdom. (Video is at the end of this post). At one point in the video he encouraged these high school students to “learn to live within your fear.” He didn’t just say those words, he lived them.

The other time was a brief visit when I stopped in a few days before he made the decision to enter into death alone. He told his siblings (his remaining immediate family) and his friends that a time would come that he would know it just time and that he would want to simply enter into death alone and silently. The only people he wanted to be allowed in were those who were needed to provide care. But no one else - just him and God/god, the universe, the mystery. I was blessed to be able to say goodbye to him that day before he moved into solitude.

I believe it was about two weeks that Phil was in that space of allowing himself to flow from this life into the next and to let life take its course just like the rivers he loved to kayak and to hike alongside as they flowed through valleys and through mountains.

Rilke wrote this poem decades before but I cannot help but see my expeirence of Phil through it. Phil helped me to see the relationship of allowing in the whole of life and embracing it all. He showed me how to look deeply into so much. In a sense, he (without having used these words) helped me to embrace the motto of the UCC, the denomination I served for the last seven years, that God is still speaking. Phil helped me to see that the world continues to be a dynamic place, ever changing, with so much more to experience, understand, feel, and embrace. As the logo of the UCC is a comma, I thought this cloud formation was appropriate. From the same bridge as my other posts this week, I saw what looked to be a comma in the sky in those morning clouds.

It has been 8+ years since Phil died and there have been so so so many times I wish that he was still present to talk about everything that has taken place in those 8+ years. But I feel he continues to speak in the wisdom he lived, earned, and shared and the memory of him that I, and so many others, hold and treasure. And I am grateful for being able to hear part of Phil’s life in the words of this poet that Phil loved so deeply. Phil showed me how to find, practice, and share hope through all times and in all seasons.

Thank you Phil.

Phil’s Sharing with the Youth Group

Phil rallying against corporate personhood in 2012

---

A few more photos from a one-day retreat one of my daughters and I took to a retreat center in southern Indiana on Thursday. The first one I especially love - the contrast between the two similar but wildly unique flowers.

Grace, Peace, Love, Hope, and Joy,
Ed

PS - As a lot of the conversations with Phil centered around understanding our shadow sides, another shadow photo of Scout and me is appropriate. You can also see my camera at my side like a camera-slinger (instead of a gunslinger)

1. https://wordsfortheyear.com/2020/04/02/let-this-darkness-be-a-bell-tower-by-rainer-maria-rilke/