Four Stars

Last weekend I saw again the movie Philomena (streaming on Netflix). I liked it even better the second time around. The story is intriguing. Philomena Lee decides, 57 years after she gave her son up for adoption, that she will reveal this secret to her family and try to find him. Her daughter requests help from journalist Martin Sixsmith, and the search is on.

Philomena gave birth to her son at Sean Ross Abbey in Roscrea, Ireland, so that is their first stop. The nuns there assure her they have no information, and all records were destroyed in "the fire." Lee and Sixsmith then continue the search in the United States where they find more unexpected answers. Then the search concludes back at Sean Ross Abbey.

The actors are great with Judi Dench as Philomena and Steve Coogan as Sixsmith. Their chemistry together is an engaging, complicated mix of emotions. They don't learn what they set out to find but as their search progresses their goals change. That's the happy ending.

Nourished by Words

After hearing David Whyte's radio interview, I've been wanting to check out one of his books. My library had only this one of them, so I picked it off the shelf and brought it home before I even looked inside. I was surprised to find in it a series of short essays, each talking about a particular word. The words are alphabetical, starting with “Alone" and ending with “Work.” I read a couple essays before I discovered the subtitle: The Solace, Nourishment and Underlining Meaning of Everyday Words.” I was hoping for some poems, but the essays look like they will be worthwhile.

Here is a sample passage from my skimming. It's about the word “Friendship.”

...the ultimate touchstone of friendship is not improvement, neither of the other nor or the self, the ultimate touchstone is witness, the privilege of having been seen by someone and the equal privilege of being granted the sight of the essence of another, to have walked with them and to have believed in them, and sometimes just to have accompanied them for however brief a span, on a journey impossible to accomplish alone.

I haven't decided yet how meaningful this book will be for me, but even this short passage has nourishing images

The Frontier Where You Find Your Identity

And in Galapagos, I began to realize that, because I was in deeply attentive states, hour after hour watching animals and birds and landscapes — and that’s all I did for almost two years — I began to realize that my identity depended not upon any beliefs I had, inherited beliefs or manufactured beliefs, but my identity actually depended on how much attention I was paying to things that were other than myself. And that as you deepen this intentionality and this attention, you started to broaden and deepen your own sense of presence. And I began to realize that the only place where things were actually real was at this frontier between what you think is you and what you think is not you. That whatever you desire of the world will not come to pass exactly as you will like it.
But the other mercy is that whatever the world desires of you will also not come to pass. And what actually occurs is this meeting, this frontier. But it’s astonishing how much time human beings spend away from that frontier, abstracting themselves out of their bodies, out of their direct experience, and out of a deeper, broader, and wider possible future that’s waiting for them if they hold the conversation at that frontier level.

This quotation is from David Whyte and the interview I mentioned on January 18. Sometimes, Whye's writing is too abstract for me—even the paragraph above is somewhat abstract, but it touched me as it seemed to explain something I've thought about from time to time. In 2003, I hiked the Camino de Santiago in Spain for the first time, a hike of approximately 450 miles. When I came home, I could only say, “It changed my wiring." Whyte comes closer to explaining what happened. For five weeks I walked and absorbed the landscape. Much was beautiful and vast. It was almost 14 years ago and it still makes me happy to think about it. I started to add, “but Whyte isn't talking about happiness.” He is going deeper than happiness. He includes loss and sorrow as well. True, but often, happiness is a bonus.