In it I find the essentials to living the spiritual life, living spiritually alive. It teaches lessons that we can learn from pain and struggle as well as well as the suggestion that the essence of freedom is responsibility, or as Daniel discovered, taking care of your three millimetres. It is simple, but not so easy.
"Your Three Millimetres"
"Dear Sam,
"An author and sociologist named Frank Abbott has said, 'Death is no enemy of life. We would have no idea what life was about if it weren't for death.'
"About ten years before you were born, I went through a terrible time in my life. And I had a dream that was a revelation.
"This was several years after my accident, shortly after your grandmother Sandy had left the marriage. Debbie and Ali had just departed for college. I was home alone. And my beloved sister, who had become my closest confidante, had just been diagnosed with a terminal brain tumor. My heart was in turmoil.
"Then I developed a bedsore on my buttocks. This is not unusual for someone who sits in a wheelchair all day, but when it happens, it can be a nightmare. The only treatment for these sores is to stay out of the wheelchair, so what little independence the wheelchair provides gets taken away.
"With grief welling up on every side, I visited the doctor. He examined me and said, 'It's broken.' I said, 'I know.' He was referring to the skin, but I was talking about my heart. 'Too much pressure,' he said, meaning my buttocks. 'I know,' I said, meaning my life.
"Then the doctor saw that the wound was moist.
"That's an unhealthy sign. 'It's weeping,' he said, using a medical term.
" 'I know,' I said, But I still wasn't talking about the wound.
"Finally he said, 'You've got to go to bed for thirty days.'
"This was my greatest nightmare. Right after the accident, I imagined that everyone would leave me and I would be home alone, confined to bed, with a nurse who was there only because she was being paid. Then, upon the recommendation of this doctor, that's exactly what happened. Displaced from my wheelchair, immobilized, I knew I would not be able to do any of the usual things that sustained me. I couldn't see patients if I couldn't sit up or go into my office. I couldn't get to the radio station for my weekly show. I couldn't drive my van or get around the house by myself. I would have to lie prone, waiting for the wound to heal.
" 'How do you know it will take thirty days?' I asked.
"The doctor explained that skin wounds, if they are in a healthy environment, heal at a rate of one millimeter a day. I wondered about wounds to the heart. How could you measure that healing?
"He gave me a brown patch called Deuoderm to cover the wound. I told him I was surprised that the wound would be covered. I thought wounds needed oxygen to heal. Shouldn't the bedsore be exposed to the air?
"Yes, he said, wounds do need oxygen to heal. But the oxygen is in the blood, not in the air. 'Everything a wound needs to heal is already in your body,' he explained. 'We just have to get access to those nutrients and let them work.'
"Those words stayed with me. If that was the way the body healed, what about the human spirit? Remembering the old prophetic story that tells how infants are born with all the wisdom they need to live, I realized that everything we needed to heal our hearts' wounds might already be in us too.
"I went home and went to bed. But the wound didn't heal in thirty days or in forty or fifty. When it finally did close, after about two months, I was elated to get back in my wheelchair. (It made me think — how many people feel overjoyed because they can sit in a wheelchair?) But then it opened up again.
"I was devastated. Here came the nightmare all over again. I felt as though my spirit was crushed for good.
"Finally, the doctor and I decided that I should have surgery.
"One night in the hospital, a friend came to visit me. I told her I didn't think I could go on anymore. What I was feeling went beyond despair. It was a loss of hope — of everything I valued, trusted, and loved. The pain had become simply unbearable.
"My friend held my hand and said, 'Dan, what you are about is more important than who you are.'
"That night, I had a dream. I dreamed that God came to me. This was not the God I believe in, the one you read about in the Bible. It was some other God, and when He spoke, he said, 'I'm going to give you a piece of the universe. Your job is to take care of it. Not make it bigger or better — just take care of it. And when I'm ready, I'll take it back, and your life will be over.'
"I looked at the piece of the universe that God was showing me, and I saw that it was just three millimeters! Was that all? I could feel my ego begin to rail against this indignity. I'm a psychologist! I am an author! I have a radio show! Aren't these things important?
"Of course, no matter how much I protested, it wouldn't make any difference. My allotment was still — and would always be — just three millimeters of the entire universe. That was it!
"But in this dream I also saw that caring for three millimeters of the universe was an awesome responsibility. A God-given responsibility. Though I had felt I couldn't go on, finally I had to acknowledge that I would have to give back my three millimeters before I was ready. And because, at the time of the dream, I had a wound that was healing in millimeters, I knew that my job was to help heal my three millimeters of the universe.
"Sam, part of the reason I'm at peace with my life is that I take care of the part of the universe I'm responsible for. I haven't made it bigger or better. I haven't changed it. But I have cared for it. Writing these letters to you is just one of many ways of tending my three millimeters.
"What I wish for you, Sam, is what I wish for everybody — to get as clear a sense of what your life is about as I got in that dream. Your three millimeters is not much in terms of area. But I hope you will feel the gratitude and joy that I feel, having been given that much to tend.
"Love,
"Pop"
I came across this wonderful piece a couple of years ago when searching for resources for “The Colours of Grief”. It hit me hard at the time, had a powerful effect on my heart and soul. I have wanted to share it with you in worship, but never found the right time. It is long and not appropriate for a reading. It came back to me on Sunday as I sat enjoying the 200 hundreth anniversary at Norcliffe Chapel Styal as stories were shared of the congregation and its mission, particularly the concept of faith and works. It got me thinking about my spiritual beliefs and how I express them, which I would say are almost perfectly encapsulated in this letter by Daniel Gottlieb.
“letters to Sam” is a touching, personal and deeply inspiring collection of letters by Daniel Gottlieb to his grandson Sam. There is clearly a deep connection between two, they share a common bond, an unconditional love, that goes beyond blood. Both would be considered “different” from the so called “norm”. Daniel is a quadriplegic who has learnt so much from his disability. His grandson Sam was diagnosed with autism at just 14 months old.
Daniel wrote the book as way of offering help and advice to Sam, to ease his attempts at navigating a life, in which he would always be dependent on others. It is a celebration of the worth and dignity of all people, that they can: "help teach people, that no matter what happens to our bodies or minds, our souls remain whole." It is not sugar coated, pain and how to live with it is a constant theme, as are the fears that come with pain. An example being Daniel’s reaction to being diagnosed with the sores. He describes his fear of being abandoned, a real fear as his wife has left, his sister who he depends on has been diagnosed with terminal cancer and his children have left him and yet humour remains.
The letter and the whole book offers a way to live spiritually alive. The essence of which is responsibility. Daniel discloses in the letter that all of us have our own little patch of life that we are responsible for. It is not necessary to get a bigger patch or to make it better. The point is to take care of it with love and gratitude and joy. This is the key to living spiritually alive. It is a book about faith and doing what is ours to do. It brings to my mind those words from the Book of James “Faith without works is dead”.
I love how Daniel describes how all that he needed to heal was already there within him. That the key is to take care of that, to be responsible for his three millimeters. As he wrote:
"The doctor explained…Yes, he said, wounds do need oxygen to heal. But the oxygen is in the blood, not in the air. 'Everything a wound needs to heal is already in your body,' he explained. 'We just have to get access to those nutrients and let them work.'
"Those words stayed with me. If that was the way the body healed, what about the human spirit? Remembering the old prophetic story that tells how infants are born with all the wisdom they need to live, I realized that everything we needed to heal our hearts' wounds might already be in us too.”
Isn’t this so true, everything we need is already here, we just need to learn to take care of it and make best use of it.
Sometimes of course no matter what we do, things still continue to go wrong. Sometimes things seem to get better and then all seems lost again. As he wrote:
"I went home and went to bed. But the wound didn't heal in thirty days or in forty or fifty. When it finally did close, after about two months, I was elated to get back in my wheelchair. (It made me think — how many people feel overjoyed because they can sit in a wheelchair?) But then it opened up again.
"I was devastated. Here came the nightmare all over again. I felt as though my spirit was crushed for good.
"Finally, the doctor and I decided that I should have surgery.”
There is something here is the wisdom of faithful and acceptance.
Then finally we see the real lesson. His whole philosopher for him and his grandson Sam. This is a universal lesson, the key to me to the spiritual life. Something of faith and works of the spiritual of life making the most of what is yours, of being responsible for what is yours, this is your gift. I hear so powerfully the wisdom of Forrest Church here too and his mantra “Want what you have, do what you can, be who you are.” What came to him at his moment of utter despair, when he felt he could go on no longer, his dream. As Daniel wrote:
"One night in the hospital, a friend came to visit me. I told her I didn't think I could go on anymore. What I was feeling went beyond despair. It was a loss of hope — of everything I valued, trusted, and loved. The pain had become simply unbearable.
"My friend held my hand and said, 'Dan, what you are about is more important than who you are.'
"That night, I had a dream. I dreamed that God came to me. This was not the God I believe in, the one you read about in the Bible. It was some other God, and when He spoke, he said, 'I'm going to give you a piece of the universe. Your job is to take care of it. Not make it bigger or better — just take care of it. And when I'm ready, I'll take it back, and your life will be over.'
The key was to take care of his piece of the universe, his three millimeters, his responsibility. This was Daniel’s work and it came to him faithfully when he was in utter despair. Again as he wrote:
"But in this dream I also saw that caring for three millimeters of the universe was an awesome responsibility. A God-given responsibility. Though I had felt I couldn't go on, finally I had to acknowledge that I would have to give back my three millimeters before I was ready. And because, at the time of the dream, I had a wound that was healing in millimeters, I knew that my job was to help heal my three millimeters of the universe.
"Sam, part of the reason I'm at peace with my life is that I take care of the part of the universe I'm responsible for. I haven't made it bigger or better. I haven't changed it. But I have cared for it. Writing these letters to you is just one of many ways of tending my three millimeters.”
The key for all of us to find our own three millimeters and love and care for it and when our time is up to give back whatever life has lent to us.
Now whatever our three millimeters may be, it is for each of us to discover ourselves. It doesn’t have to be anything big and glorious. By taking care of what is close at hand sounds like the embodiment of faith and works to me. As Viktor Frankl stated it was the responsibility of each individual to find their own meaning in life, that this was in many ways the ultimate freedom and that it could not be prescribed for us. That said it was more than just our ultimate freedom, it was also our responsibility. In fact he taught that the ultimate freedom was to be responsible for what is yours. Daniel Gottlieb’s letters to Sam are also in alignment with Frankl’s central concept that the key to life is to find meaning despite our very real suffering and it was this that led to us transcending despair. That this is our ultimate responsibility and thus freedom.
The beginning of this is to accept the reality that we find ourselves, if it is beyond our power to change it. Of course if we can change it our ultimate responsibility is to do so, if it causes suffering. This brings to mind a favourite story, this version uses Nasrudin as the vehicle. It is titled “Dandelions”
Mulla Nasrudin decided to start a flower garden. He prepared the soil and planted the seeds of many beautiful flowers. But when they came up, his garden was filled not just with his chosen flowers but also overrun by dandelions.
He sought out advice from gardeners all over and tried every method known to get rid of them but to no avail. Finally he walked all the way to the capital to speak to the royal gardener at the sheikh's palace.
The wise old man had counseled many gardeners before and suggested a variety of remedies to expel the dandelions but Nasrudin had tried them all. They sat together in silence for some time and finally the gardener looked at Nasrudin and said, "Well, then I suggest you learn to love them."
So often in life we try to change our circumstances in our pursuit of what we believe will make us happy. We attempt to perfect our outer or even inner world thinking that this will rid us of the potential troubles that accompany life. We attempt to wish our troubles away, when maybe what we ought to be doing is learning to love what is there in its wholeness. Maybe we all spend too much time weeding the garden and not enough time learning to love what is already there. Maybe those dandelions are our three millimeters.
Again I am reminded of Forrest Church’s mantra: “Want what you have; do what you can; be who you are.”
It begins with accepting who we are and actually loving who we are, we are then better able to do what we can. This is exemplified in the following story.
There is a wonderful ancient Jewish story about Rabbi Gamaliel. He was asked by one of his students if he thought he had done enough with his life. He pondered the question for a moment before answering...
“When I die, God will not ask me, ‘Gamaliel, why were you not an Abraham or a Moses? God will ask me, ‘Were you Gamaliel?’”
To be who we are means that we must embrace our God-given natures and talents; it means that we accept who we are and make the most of it; it means that we do not try to be something or someone we are not. We take responsibility for what we have been gifted. Our job is to nurture and develop these gifts not merely for ourselves, but for the good of all.
As Gottlieb said it is about taking care of our 3 millimetres. Being responsible for our lives. This is the spiritual life in its entirety. It is purpose and it is what will give our lives true meaning. In so doing we may just begin to create the “Kin-dom” of love right here, right now.
Below is a video devotion based on the material in this "blogspot"
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