Here or Nowhere

“Have patience with everything that remains unsolved in your heart. Try to love the questions themselves, like locked rooms and like books written in a foreign language…Perhaps then, someday far in the future, you will gradually, without even noticing it, live your way into the answer.

Rainer Maria Rilke

I picked up a book recently from a hospital Chaplain’s library called Here or Nowhere. The Chaplain who has become a mentor to me, told me to pick any book I wanted from her bookshelf to borrow. The small dusty copy of Here or Nowhere by Renée Hermanson (1984) caught my eye. It was a simple quote on the back cover that stood out. Hermanson, writing from a Christian perspective and weaving in biblical figures to help her unpack “middle age” and all its meaning, writes, “I spent many years waiting–for time to go back to school, for the children to grow up, for our finances to get better–and then discovered time was not waiting, but marching on. I believe we need to be reminded that, as Thomas Carlyle said, our ideal is here or nowhere. We must find God in our lives and our lives in God wherever and whenever we are.”

The search for meaning and a sense of “arrival” seem to be timeless inquiries. From biblical times through the present, we are all searching, looking for answers to life’s big questions. Why are we here? What is intended for us? What is God or the world or the universe waiting for us to realize and manifest? I’ve been fighting with myself lately around these questions. I’ve been asking myself, do I want to go back to school and pursue another degree or credential? I’ve been pondering a leadership path that weaves through religion and the spiritual. I’ve also been hit with the reality that I need to focus on a new job search, to secure a full/ “fuller” time position that will give my family some more breathing room and sustenance. While just a short year ago, I thought the answer was to leave my job to find more breathing room and be home with our young daughter, now I need to reverse the cycle and work more hours. Such is the ebb and flow of life.

There is a pending fear and excitement all at the same time about the prospect of more change ahead. There is a part of me that I think will always yearn for change and new opportunities to break free from what feels like the mundane and ordinary. I’ve realized I’m chasing something that is always going to be a step (or miles) in front of me unless I change my perspective. I risk now sinking back into the “if only” syndrome of my 20’s and 30’s. If only I had a partner, if only I was settled down, if only I had a child, etc. etc. But when that elusive “if only” becomes a reality, your dreams just morph into something further away.

How can I find wisdom and answers right here in the now, without trying to search for them? How can I release the pressure to keep searching and at the same time remain a seeker and stay curious?

I recently watched the movie, Women Talking (2022), produced by Sarah Polley. It chronicles a two-day period in which women from an isolated Mennonite community grapple with the decision of whether or not to stay and fight their attackers or leave their community. It is a profound depiction of women at their strongest and weakest moments, scared out of their minds about the violence (sexual, physical, and emotional) their children might face. I was struck by the character of Ona (played by Mara Rooney) who is sometimes teased for being too lofty or imaginative in her ideals. She allows herself to dream and float above the horrors her community has endured and imagine a better world for herself and her children. She is at the same time grounded in what’s real and what’s looming if the women don’t act and make a decision. In the end, when they have every reason to give up on their faith in God, the women lean further into their faith. As one female character wisely states, they must look further out into the distance beyond what is right in front of them (in an analogy to how she steadies her horses when riding her buggy).

I also recently finished re-reading the book, The Red Tent by Anita Diamant (2007). It depicts the biblical character, Dinah who is Leah and Jacobs’s only daughter. Dinah is merely a footnote in the bible, depicted as a victim to a violent crime and sandwiched between the stories of her iconic father, Jacob and her powerful brother, Joseph. Her voice enraptures me and carries me back into Canaan and the land of my ancestors. I am struck by the lives the women lead, anchored in many ways by the “red tent” which is where they gather each month during their menstrual cycles. In the tent, they talk and dream and lament. They share their wisdom and woes and build meaning through their stories. The women are apart from the men in their community during this 3 day period each month. The men are forbidden to enter in fact. Similar to the secluded barn haystacks upon which the women sit in Women Talking (set in 2010), Dinah and her mothers gather strength from one another to go back out and face the world.

On the cusp of another spring and in honor of International Women’s Day, I am reminded that perhaps we can gather wisdom from the strong female figures of our past to make tough decisions. Can characters like Dinah and Ona who aren’t afraid to dream big in the face of incredible obstacles, inspire me to do the same? Perhaps big (and even small) decisions are not meant to be made in isolation, alone in the quiet of our minds, but instead in community with our sisters, mothers and family members of generations past. In this spirit and in the red tents of our futures, may we lean into one another’s collective wisdom to emerge stronger and refreshed for the journey ahead, knowing that here and beyond are often where the magic happens.