The Longest Walk

Photo by Libby Mundy, c. 2015

 “The longest walk is door to door.”

That’s what my dad used to say when he was a canvasser for Greenpeace, going door-to-door in any kind of weather – rain, snow, sun, bitter cold - to talk to whoever would listen about the environment and what they could do to help save the planet. My dad would talk with those that were kind enough to open their doors, and perhaps even listen, and then he would eventually ask for a donation to Greenpeace to support its mission and work. More often than not, he’d head back down the steps and away from a door that never opened to walk to the next door - his conviction, environmental literature, a good pen, and a pack of unfiltered Camel cigarettes his constant travel companions.

I like to think about my (anti-technology) dad tweeting out: “The longest walk is door to door.” 

“What’s it mean?” people might ask. It means that you never know what you are going to get as you approach that next door and stand there and knock.  Waiting for someone to answer the door.  Waiting for someone to look out and open their door to you, their eyes to you – no matter what you look like or what assumptions they might be making. 

For both the outsider and the insider, huge risks are being taken.  Yet many of us don’t take them.  We don’t venture out. Go to the door and knock.  Ask for what we need.  We know NOT to open the door to a stranger. Sometimes we don’t even get off the couch to see who’s there . . .

It’s a choice all of us make. Every day. Do we want to sit on the couch and be onlookers in our lives or do we want to show up and be present for this grand adventure, THIS EPIC HIKE, that is our life? Do we get out there and walk our longest walks or do we sit on our rears and wait for our answers to find us?  (Let me give you a clue: Our answers are most likely NOT on our couches.)

A street-level educator my dad liked to call himself. He was ABD (All But Dissertation) in English Lit yet the politics involved in finishing his doctorate tripped him up and kept him from seeing it through (I like to think of my doctoral degree as making good on my father’s unpaid debt to the world of higher education; I fondly refer to the doctoral process as a trial - not for the brightest and best – merely, the most persistent).

Anyone that knew my dad knew how intelligent he was.  An intellectual snob some might have even said (probably because he told them their cocktail parties were like eternal funerals – somehow he didn’t get, or perhaps care, that that might be off-putting).  He was the most well read person I've ever known, always recommending a good book or leaving one behind, often tucked on a bookshelf to find later (the last one he left me was Garrison Keillor’s Happy To Be Here).

He wrote beautifully, lyrically. He could find a connection with anyone, be it through music, sports, geography, or literature. Yet, he was not able to combine all these amazing talents and strengths into a cohesive whole – to bring to and give to the world all of the beauty of his being so that his light could shine most brightly.  Indeed, I think my dad often dimmed his own light because its brilliance frightened him. His insecurities got in the way of his greatness.

It’s like that Marianne Williamson quote I so love:

“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, 'Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous?' Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It's not just in some of us; it's in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.”

My dad was the street-level educator who drove a cab the last few years of his life.  My dad was the guy who might have sold you a Christmas tree at one of the seasonal lots where a little, dingy trailer is set up for the person selling the tree to stay warm from the bitter chill of a Michigan winter.  That was my dad.  Not just some random guy.  Not some creep or some low-life.   

THAT WAS MY DAD.

 And I’m sure he aspired to more.  But it was what he chose.  It was what he needed to do.
And you know what?  All he wanted was for people to listen to him.  To take him seriously.  To not care what he looked like or what it was that he did for a living because he had something to say, something to share, that mattered.   

EVERYONE DOES. 

Do you get it?  Every single person you see, bump into, cross paths with – each and every person has a story. And it matters. Each person is someone’s son or daughter. Or perhaps someone’s mother or father or brother or sister or friend or partner or spouse.  Each and every person belongs to someone.   
AND THEY MATTER.

Over the last seven weeks, I’ve had the privilege of sitting in on a dear friend’s Intellectual Growth and Inquiry class, which prepares adult learners (students going back to start or finish college later in life) for their return to the college classroom. With its focus on confidence building, self-awareness, and goal setting, the course is designed to support these students in completing their college degrees. And as these students are preparing to go back to the classroom, so am I!

Beginning in the spring, I will also have the honor of teaching this class and working with this unique student population. And so unlike my many years with traditional, college-age students, I am learning that adult learners have myriad reasons for returning to college later in life.  They also bring to the classroom experience and wisdom that traditional-age students lack.  And their sense of purpose and focus is more honed, given the many competing priorities their lives are filled with.  Often it is these competing priorities (family, job responsibilities, military participation, recovery and/or mental health issues) that have hindered their college completion in the past.

Needless to say, I am in awe of these brave, courageous, and dedicated students who are mid-stream in their lives and are choosing the road less taken, heading back to complete their degrees so that they can shape their lives in new and different ways. Who are making that long walk to a new door, ripe with opportunity, change, transformation.

One student, in particular, reminds me so much of my father.  Not by how he looks or what he says.  But by the invisible armor he wears and his evident, but perhaps oft misunderstood, need to be heard. You can tell by how he interacts in class that he has not been allowed to be vulnerable, that his unique strengths may not always have been affirmed.  Yet, he is trying, albeit a bit clumsily, to live his strengths and to find ways to use his strengths to be heard. 

Each week, my teacher friend and I make eye contact and we KNOW - this student is making that longest walk. It’s hard with the armor but it’s getting easier as he sheds that heavy weight, one self-disclosure at a time. Bravo to him!  I am so grateful for his example.  And his courage.  He, like my father, is nothing more than a diamond in the rough. Finding ways to let his light shine. His brilliance sparkle.

It is easy to assume someone else is bad/wrong/weird because they are so different than us. Because they have made different choices or live such different lives. But if we take that long walk or knock or open the door and truly listen to that “other”, get to know him or her and learn their story and perhaps share ours, well, what we learn is that we all are the very same inside:

We all belong to someone.  We all want to be seen. Acknowledged. Known. Accepted for who we are.

None of us knows how long the walk is. What door will be in front of us. Who will be behind that door. Whether or not it will open.  But the point is, we don’t have to KNOW. We just have to show up and put one foot in front of the other.  Sooner or later, a door will appear.  A door will open.

And if it happens to be a trailer door at the Christmas tree lot? By all means, talk to that person. Start a conversation. He might have something worth saying, something you need to hear. A light he might be able to shine on some part of you – or you, on him.

Remember, he belongs to somebody. Give that person the gift of being seen.

No, please don’t be fooled by anyone’s disguise. Look under their armor. Find a connection.  Ease someone’s long walk when you can.  Venture out on your own long walk.   

CLAIM YOUR EPIC HIKE.

Open the door and let your light shine.