A Small, Sound Voice on Stillness

Cultural historical memories are fickle:  A few people are remembered; many are forgotten. This holds true for literature as well.  How many people have written poetry?  The number is unimaginable.  And yet, open any anthology of poetry, and you will find poems by fewer than a hundred poets, usually only a few dozen.

Siegfried Sassoon (1917)

One early 20th-century English-speaking poet who has been a victim of this cultural forgetfulness is Siegfried Sassoon (1886-1967).  His poems are mostly forgotten because he got labeled as being a "war poet" for his poems expressing the horrors of World War I.  But his war poems could not match those of his contemporary Wilfred Owen, and so Sassoon became eclipsed by Owen.  However, only some of Siegfried Sassoon's poems are about war.  Many are spiritual.  Some are also about Nature.  One in particular speaks of winter in a way that is meaningful whether the world is at peace or at war.

The poem begins with the words "December stillness," setting the nearly-still atmosphere of both the poem and the winter day the poet is experiencing.  The next words quickly show that it is more than stillness Sassoon is evoking.  He is also speaking about an invisible depth behind the stillness, a spiritual depth -- one that some readers might want to use the word "God" for, even though Sassoon never employs that word:

"December stillness, teach me through your trees

That loom along the west, one with the land,

The veiled evangel of your mysteries."

At this point, it would be tempting for any poet to begin describing those "trees."  After all, winter evergreens can be majestically beautiful, as can the outlines of bare trees with winter snow in the background.  Instead, Sassoon seizes upon another phenomenon of winter -- that the bareness of trees can better allow us to look up at the sky:

"Speak, roofless Nature, your instinctive words;

And let me learn your secret from the sky,"

Continuing to convey his firsthand, immediate experience, Sassoon has his clear line of sight caught by something seemingly unexpected:

"And let me learn your secret from the sky,

Following a flock of steadfast, journeying birds"

Now, Sassoon's contemplative openness to Nature on this still winter day leads to his becoming more aware of, and being able to express, a yearning within his heart.  The desire he speaks in the poem's final line mirrors something he perceived in the birds:

"Teach me to travel far and bear my loads."

We may all be eventually forgotten.  Nonetheless, may our lives more often touch the depths of our own living by being touched by the depths of Nature.

~~~

Even if winter has only begun where you live, have you noticed any changes in Nature?  Have you noticed any changes in the stirrings of your heart at this time of year?

(Sassoon's poem is from Collected Poems of Siegfried Sassoon, © 1918, 1920.)

(The entire poem can be read at this external link:  "December Stillness.")

Etiquette, Empathy, and Animals

The short radio segment stayed with me.  It did so because it was about something people shared and didn't share in their ways of looking at the world.  The article (on NPR radio) was about a survey showing that in the U.S., both parents and schoolteachers thought it was important that children be kind.  But when the survey dug a little deeper, it revealed a significant difference in what the adults meant by “being kind.” Parents tended to think it meant that a child had good manners.  In contrast, teachers tended to thing that being kind meant that a child had learned to empathize with what other people are feeling.

In its usage today, the word “manners” lies on a spectrum between “etiquette” and “courtesy.” Etiquette encompasses practices that have to do more with locale and social standing.  Such as where the fork, knife, and spoon are placed around the dinner plate.  Or how a person manipulates their fork while eating.  Although manners can overlap with some codes of etiquette, the word “manners” implies ways of behaving that are more fundamental to smoothing the wheels of social interaction. Such as saying “please” and “thank you.”

Even learning manners, however, does not require being sensitive to what other people are feeling (as those schoolteachers tried to remind us).  Being well-mannered means that I have developed some self-restraint, civility, and forbearance in my actions.  But that does not mean that I can empathize with the feelings and needs of other people amid the complexity of real-life situations -- so that I can compassionately adjust my response to the needs of the moment.

Even some non-human animals can be said to be well-mannered based on the demands of their own social groups.  For example, animal behaviorists (such as the 20th-century pioneer Konrad Lorenz), have studied how dogs have evolved instinctive rituals for greeting each other.  And dogs have even developed such abilities as recognizing that a human's smile showing teeth is a sign of friendliness, whereas instinct usually interprets the baring of teeth as meaning aggression. However, such an extension of knowledge beyond one's own species is uncommon. For non-human social animals, “manners” are in most cases confined to their own species.

In contrast, as the Christian eco-theologian Thomas Berry has pointed, we humans are unique in our ability to feel compassion for all other species. Although instances have been observed in which some mammals have shown distress when an animal of another species was in anguish, to the best of our knowledge, only we humans can try to identify with what all other species experience.  And behind that possibility, in addition to our conceptual powers, lies the remarkable ability of humans to empathize with what another creature might be feeling.

There is a classic story out of the ancient Chinese faith-tradition of Taoism.  The wise teacher Chuang Tzu and a companion, walking together, pause on a footbridge to watch the fish swimming in the water below.  After a bit, Chuang Tzu says “How happy those fish are!” The second man replies, “You are not a fish.  So you cannot know what a fish feels.”  But Chuang Tzu cleverly responds by saying, “If that were the case -- and you not being me -- then how can you know what I do and do not know about fish?”

~ ~ ~

What do you think prevents us human beings from better cultivating our ability to empathize?

(The story “The Joy of Fishes,” in poetic stanzas,
 can be found in The Way of Chuang Tzu by Thomas Merton, © 1965.  pp. 97-98.)

(The pictures are from Konrad Lorenz's books Man Meets Dog and
  King Solomon's Ring, and are used under Fair Use.)