Knowing when to go and when to stay....

I don't know if it was Dorothy Parker or someone else just as wise who said that there is a genius in knowing when to go and when to stay at a party.

Yesterday, a Saturday, at a coffeeshop near the office, I was sitting, reading yet another book by Clarice Lispector and scribbling notes in the margin of a script I continue to struggle with. I'll spare you the insignificant details that led a man about half my age to engage me in a conversation.

He was waiting for friends on their way to a wedding in Michigan. (Only later did I think of those Biblical stories about wedding parties.) He asked me about what I was working on and I asked him questions about his photography.

Five minutes into this conversation, I felt the uncomfortable awkwardness of wondering what we had to really talk about. Was this all just casual chit-chat? After all, he was just milling about, waiting for his ride, and I, I had things to do, dialog to write, books to read.

But here's the thing, my little Cosmic Surfer, I want you to sit with your discomfort.

I want you to look in the eye of another person and see if you recognize Christ there. Because Jesus walks up to us every day. It's just that on most days, we're too busy or perhaps nervous that this person WANTS something, that we turn away.

A wise man (he was a Catholic monk by the name of Wayne Teasdale but I've wondered whether to mention his vocation at all since what he showed me transcended that) once walked with me and we met a homeless man. He called the man who was selling books he had found in the garage from a cardboard box table he had fashioned near a train overpass. My friend asked him about the titles, thanks the man and we walked on without any money changing hands.

What he told me was that he never gave people on the street money because what the really valuable thing many of these people lacked was someone acknowledging them as people.

By the time you read this, you'll have seen it a thousand times: people dropping money into the cups of the poor on the street, but never making eye contact, never asking the name of the individual. Asking someone's name is all you need ever offer.

So this person who was waiting for his friends? Was he bored? Why me? Should I move on to my office to get my writing done?

He asked to take my picture. I let him.

Again, this was my chance to high-tail it outta there. Nice to meet you....

But instead, when he opened his bag, I asked: What are you reading?

He was more than happy to pull out a book of his favorite philosopher (G.K. Chesterton) and his favorite poet (Wendell Berry). He told me why he liked these authors and then, without my asking, flipped through the collected poems of Wendell Berry and shared this Manifesto with me.

Dear soul, my child, I hope someday you discover these riches: for the currency of poetry is priceless:

Manifesto: The Mad Farmer Liberation Front

Love the quick profit, the annual raise, vacation with pay.

Want more of everything made.

Be afraid to know your neighbors and to die.

And you will have a window in your head.

Not even your future will be a mystery any more.

Your mind will be punched in a card and shut away in a little drawer.

When they want you to buy something they will call you.

When they want you to die for profit they will let you know.

So, friends, every day do something that won't compute.

Love the Lord. Love the world. Work for nothing.

Take all that you have and be poor.

Love someone who does not deserve it.

Denounce the government and embrace the flag.

Hope to live in that free republic for which it stands.

Give your approval to all you cannot understand.

Praise ignorance,

for what man has not encountered he has not destroyed.

Ask the questions that have no answers.

Invest in the millennium.

Plant sequoias.

Say that your main crop is the forest that you did not plant,

that you will not live to harvest.

Say that the leaves are harvested when they have rotted into the mold.

Call that profit. Prophesy such returns.

Put your faith in the two inches of humus that will build under the trees

every thousand years.

Listen to carrion--put your ear close,

and hear the faint chattering of the songs that are to come.

Expect the end of the world.

Laugh. Laughter is immeasurable.

Be joyful though you have considered all the facts.

So long as women do not go cheap for power,

please women more than men.

Ask yourself: Will this satisfy a woman satisfied to bear a child?

Will this disturb the sleep of a woman near to giving birth?

Go with your love to the fields.

Lie easy in the shade. Rest your head in her lap.

Swear allegiance to what is nighest your thoughts.

As soon as the generals and politicos can predict the motions

of your mind, lose it.

Leave it as a sign to mark the false trail, the way you didn't go.

Be like the fox who makes more tracks than necessary,

some in the wrong direction.

Practice resurrection.

Postscript: Before I was able to finish this poem, his friends pulled up in a car. He apologized, said he had to go, told me his name, Joe Lieski, and shook my hand. Then he was gone.

Life is funny like that: you don't get to finish the poem before the person who shared it with you is gone too soon. Savor those moments with other, authentic beings. Human, ifrit, angel, animal or maple tree.