T.S. Tuesday: Journey of the Magi Pt. 1

It’s finally happening. I’ve finally branched out from the Four Quartets. Today’s evocative Eliot comes from his poem “The Journey of the Magi.”

I ask your forgiveness in advance because I’m going to mix some Eliot with some Salinger. My brain has been fully marinating in the delightful details and philosophical forays of all that is Franny and Zooey and, despite my efforts at purging, I just can’t seem to let him go. Plus, I think it’s pertinent, at least tangentially.

I’ll start by sharing the first of three stanzas of Eliot’s poem “The Journey of the Magi.”

(This will be a three-part post, FYI. If you’re the type who likes to read ahead, you can view the poem in its entirety here).


"A cold coming we had of it,
Just the worst time of the year
For a journey, and such a long journey:
The was deep and the weather sharp,
The very dead of winter."
And the camels galled, sore-footed, refractory,
Lying down in the melting snow.
There were times we regretted
The summer palaces on slopes, the terraces,
And the silken girls bringing sherbet.
Then the camel men cursing and grumbling
And running away, and wanting their liquor and women,
And the night-fires going out, and the lack of shelters,
And the cities hostile and the towns unfriendly
And the villages dirty, and charging high prices.
A hard time we had of it.
At the end we preferred to travel all night,
Sleeping in snatches,
With the voices singing in our ears, saying
That this was all folly.”

As the title suggests, this poem is about the journey of the Magi, the three wise men, to see the Christ child. Magi sounds far off and mystical. Like there has to be robes and camels and ancient wisdom involved in seeing this newborn Messiah.

But that’s not true.

We are all pilgrims. We all have the makings of a wise man or woman.

As a fellow pilgrim and aspiring wise woman, I’ve been thinking a lot about this journey. And what the final destination will be.

What’s the point? Why put up with the hostile towns and dirty villages? Why be called a fool?

What is it about seeing this Christ child that makes the arduous road worthwhile?

What is it that this SEEING will do?

The answer I have come to currently is the answer given by Zooey, in Salinger’s Franny and Zooey.

Which, ironically doesn’t require a physical journey at all, but a journey of perspective. A paradigm shift.

As Zooey tells his nervous-and-religious-breakdown-ridden sister, Franny, there is something about Jesus, this Messiah that the Magi, sleeping in snatches and traveling across deserts ventured to see, that can’t be found in any one else:

“Jesus knew — knew — that we're carrying the Kingdom of Heaven around with us, inside, where we're all too stupid and sentimental and unimaginative to look? You have to be a son of God to know that kind of stuff.”

“I can't see why anybody — unless he was a child, or an angel, or a lucky simpleton like the pilgrim — would even want to say a prayer to a Jesus who was the least bit different from the way he looks and sounds in the New Testament. My God! He's only the most intelligent man in the Bible, that's all! Who isn't he head and shoulders over? Who? Both Testaments are full of pundits, prophets, disciples, favorite sons, Solomons, Isaiahs, Davids, Pauls — but, my God, who besides Jesus really knew which end was up? Nobody. Not Moses. Don't tell me Moses. He was a nice man, and he kept in beautiful touch with his God, and all that — but that's exactly the point. He had to keep in touch. Jesus realized there is no separation from God.”

God is in EVERYTHING. Including us.

This is the seeing and seeking that I wish to attain. To see the I AM in me, in my coworkers, in my friends, in my enemies. This is the pilgrimage that enthralls and propels me. 

This is the destination that keeps me voyaging despite “the voices singing in [my] ears, saying That this was all folly.”

Getting Stoned At Work

It started out innocent enough. A sneak here. A quick break there. Just a short distraction. Nothing too harmful. No one has to know about it.

My name is Aly Lewis and I get stoned at work.

Okay, not literally or illegally. But every day I engage in an activity at work that 'hurts my IQ more than pot.'

It's called multi-tasking.

We're all guilty of it. Checking e-mail. Checking Facebook. Switching from tab to tab. Simultaneously writing three reports, checking CNN, reading my favorite satirical aid blog, composing my next eblast, and adding an event to the company calendar.

This, according to a recent survey, makes me dumber than being stoned. In an article my boss sent around (which I ironically opened immediately because I was obsessively checking my email), it lists Stop multi-tasking as the #2 best way to stay productive, stating, "Switching from task to task quickly does not work. In fact, changing tasks more than 10 times in a day makes you dumber than being stoned. When you’re stoned, your IQ drops by five points. When you multitask, it drops by an average of 10 points, 15 for men, five for women (yes, men are three times as bad at multitasking than women)."

Well, I've got the female thing going for me, but still, those numbers are pretty grim.

What's worse, is I can't seem to stop. Even while writing this post I've checked my email three times, went to Facebook on autopilot then chastised myself, and opened a new Pandora station.

I'm hooked.

If you'd asked me two years ago what I thought about multi-tasking, I would have said it's God's gift to people with ADD (of which I think I have a slight case). I would have said the constant change of pace keeps me alert. I thrive on variety. I thought I thrived on multi-tasking.

But over the last couple of years (my third and fourth years sitting in front of a computer eight hours a day), I've begun to think that maybe I'm doing myself a disservice. Maybe my constant task switching is dumbing me down.

Always one for challenges, I first realized I had a problem when I decided to test how long I could go without switching tasks.

It was a painstaking 42 seconds...

Maybe that's a bit of an exaggeration, but sadly not much. As an introvert and a writer, I've always prided myself on my ability to concentrate and to get lost in a story. But it seems I just can't engage like I used to.

Sure, I can get stuff done. I'm a high functioning multi-tasker, as I'm sure I'd be a high functioning pothead. But that doesn't mean it's good for me.

The problem with multi-tasking, I think, isn't that we're doing too much, but that we're not engaging in the first place. Because our brains are swamped with information, we're not present. We're not engaging in meaningful work or in meaningful rest.

The cure?

Stop checking email? Stop checking Facebook? Stop playing Words with Friends?

Is that even possible?!

I hope so.

In the last three months I've made a vow to STOP THE TYRANNY OF MULTI-TASKING. To work on one project at a time. To be fully engaged and fully present with the work at hand.

It's tough. I've managed to increase my concentration time from ~42 seconds per task to about twenty minutes, more if I really get on a roll.

But I still have a long way to go toward the sanity of mind I deeply desire.

There are some great recommendations in this article and this article, such as scheduling email and taking time out to actually read something longer than a tweet. For specific advice on distraction free writing, this is the best article I've seen.

Another good place I've found to start is prayer. Because, really, this is a spiritual issue of slowing down to see the work God has for us, the work right in front of us.

How can I honor God with my mind if my mind is all over the place?

How can I enjoy meaningful rest if I don't learn how to turn off the distractions?

I'm reminded of the last stanza in one of my favorite poems by Wendell Berry, Sabbaths 2002:

"Teach me work that honors Thy work...

Teach me patience beyond work

and, beyond patience, the blest

Sabbath of Thy unresting love

which lights all things and gives rest."

I want to learn a patience not only beyond but IN my work that I may do work that honors His work and honors the mind He has given me.

Readers, how do you deal with distractions? What tips can you give a girl who wants to get clean at work?

A Window to the Soul

It sits in my jewelry box, intermingled with my collection of cheap, cubic zirconium studs from Claire’s and my chunky new thrift store bracelets. A small jewel sparkles within the sleek silver, not a diamond, just a look-alike. It shimmers small and smooth, almost feminine, almost pretty. It didn’t look so pretty when it was in my face.

Eyebrow rings never really appealed to me. They’re not exactly my style—too tattoo and skull-and-crossbones for my taste. Too rebellious. Too emo. Not me. 

And yet, every time I sift through my hand-painted, Ecuadorian jewelry box, I remember that, at one point, it was me. 

. . .

                       

Countless girls had pierced their noses. The dainty studs glittered their faces like freckles. I scoffed each day when a new girl appeared in class, eyes bright, noses bejeweled. How silly. How conformist. 

Mindi had it right.  A jagged metal loop protruded from her eyebrow, not her nostril. A real statement. Rebellion. 

Mindi’s eyebrow ring scowled, grotesque and abrasive, making her unapproachable, inhospitable. Perfect. 

           

With each new question and each new experience a part of me slipped away, disappeared. I did not match my beliefs. I did not have beliefs. 

           

My mind became unfamiliar territory, unknown. I ached for my face to be unfamiliar as well. 

. . .

                       

I clenched my teeth while my hands fisted and unfisted themselves. The curved needle lingered expectantly, ravenously, in the tattoo artist’s steady hand. I had to remind myself to breathe. One meager tear crept saltily down my cheek as the hollow needle bit into the soft skin above my eye. The needle slid smoothly, slowly, like knitting. More like sewing actually, or mending. But the hollow tube paved the way for a thick bar of metal, not thread. This needle didn’t mend or fix, although something was definitely broken. Teeth grinding, palms sweating, I finally exhaled. It was finished. 

. . .

The checker absently scanned my Herbal Essences spray gel, graham crackers, and pack of Extra green apple gum.  His eyes never left my face.  Heat flushed my cheeks and I wondered if I had something in my teeth.  Only in the parking lot did it click. 

The eyebrow ring.

Nothing had changed. Men with six packs of Miller Light and diesel trucks still congregated outside the Handy House.  The air hung oppressive and humid in the North Carolina summer heat. I received sweat-sticky hugs and furtive stares from my aunts and uncles. No questions.  Just stares. 

Was this what I wanted?             

. . .

I no longer wore the dainty gold promise ring my dad had given me for my 16^th birthday. That sounds bad. I didn’t lose the promise, just the conviction. The perfect circle grated against the segmented me. The certainty belonged to someone else. 

Instead I wore my eyebrow ring. Ring implies circularity, continuity, but that’s not accurate. Dissociated, fragmented, pierced says it better.

The mirror always offered a surprise. The metallic glimmer of my reflection in store windows or car mirrors never felt like me.

I woke up one morning tired of surprises.  No longer the person wishing to repel. 

Now it sits in my jewelry box, intermingled with my collection of cheap, cubic zirconium studs from Claire’s and my chunky new thrift store bracelets.