Mostly Love Now

Hayden Carruth

*The sign above appeared in town in spring of 2020 as the COVID virus was wreaking havoc on the world.

I recently listened again to George Saunders’ well known 2013 commencement speech delivered to the Syracuse University graduating class. The one line that essentially sums up his speech is this one: “What I regret most in my life are failures of kindness. Those moments when another human being was there, in front of me, suffering and I responded… sensibly. Reservedly. Mildly.”

Those are powerful words. They are indeed cautionary words, words of wisdom rooted in daily life. Words that I never want to forget. As part of that speech, Mr. Saunders also referenced the words of the poet Hayden Carruth:

“One thing in our favor: some of this “becoming kinder” happens naturally, with age. It might be a simple matter of attrition: as we get older, we come to see how useless it is to be selfish — how illogical, really. We come to love other people and are thereby counter-instructed in our own centrality. We get our butts kicked by real life, and people come to our defense, and help us, and we learn that we’re not separate, and don’t want to be. We see people near and dear to us dropping away, and are gradually convinced that maybe we too will drop away (someday, a long time from now). Most people, as they age, become less selfish and more loving. I think this is true. The great Syracuse poet, Hayden Carruth, said, in a poem written near the end of his life, that he was “mostly Love, now.”

Imagine that. Imagine being mostly Love, now. That is what I want to be when I grow up. Mostly Love, now. I think it is possible too. It seems as if I have spent most of my 70 years working, both professionally and as a human being, to live a life of service. I tried to be as present as possible to the ones I love. I also enjoyed pursuing my interests and a variety of leisure activities. But now? Now I have more discretionary time. I have time where I can be of service, where I can pause in the moment and pay attention to the beauty around me, where I can be a witness to the lives and stories of other people. Now I can really be that force of love in the world. Sometimes that means simple meditation that calls for the Universe (aka God, Great Source, whatever you want to call that force) to guide and protect all beings. It means embracing the mysteries, loving the questions, being luminous even on the darkest days. It’s a tall order but why not strive for that? My life is closer to the ending than to the beginning. It’s my time now to make sense of all that came before. It’s a time of fewer responsibilities and more opportunities to be a light in the world, to shine on the goodness, kindness, warmth, and levity in the world around me.

I’ve included the poem from which George Saunders extracted his idea of mostly Love, now. Below the poem is a link to the commencement speech and a link to the transcript of the speech.

Testament

by Hayden Carruth

So often has it been displayed to us, the hourglass
with its grains of sand drifting down,
not as an object in our world
but as a sign, a symbol, our lives
drifting down grain by grain,
sifting away – I’m sure everyone must
see this emblem somewhere in the mind.
Yet not only our lives drift down. The stuff
of ego with which we began, the mass
in the upper chamber, filters away
as love accumulates below. Now
I am almost entirely love. I have been
to the banker, the broker, those strange
people, to talk about unit trusts,
annuities, CDS, IRAS, trying
to leave you whatever I can after
I die. I’ve made my will, written
you a long letter of instructions.
I think about this continually.
What will you do? How
will you live? You can’t go back
to cocktail waitressing in the casino.
And your poetry? It will bring you
at best a pittance in our civilization,
a widow’s mite, as mine has
for forty-five years. Which is why
I leave you so little. Brokers?
Unit trusts? I’m no financier doing
the world’s great business. And the sands
in the upper glass grow few. Can I leave
you the vale of ten thousand trilliums
where we buried our good cat Pokey
across the lane to the quarry?
Maybe the tulips I planted under
the lilac tree? Or our red-bellied
woodpeckers who have given us so
much pleasure, and the rabbits
and the deer? And kisses And
love-makings? All our embracings?
I know millions of these will be still
unspent when the last grain of sand
falls with its whisper. its inconsequence,
on the mountain of my love below.

The commencement address:

Transcript: https://jamesclear.com/great-speeches/failures-of-kindness-by-george-saunders