Reading, hearing or watching the recap of Ted Kennedy’s life brings many thoughts to mind. Certainly the magnitude of a man committed to service and doing what he could to improve the lives of so many is right in the forefront. His compassion for people, his willingness to clearly and at times forcefully stand for his ideals, his belief in working diligently and often patiently for decades to gain forward movement and his ability to cooperate and compromise to effect change in what he saw as a positive direction are all there to be seen.
Stories of his personal care, rememberance and connection to friends, family and others in his world are as striking as his political accomplishments. He lived large but also remained connected to the things that really matter in a life.
Two other things occur to me as I ponder this man who lived such a “big life”. The first is how he seemed to hit his stride after he gave up any thoughts of the presidency. It is as if he found, his niche, the place in life where he could express his own best self and not try to fill the shoes of another. The second is, he also had to face his demons and find his way through tremendous personal anguish and find a way to live in the world with both his blessings and his pain. And in doing all of that, he prospered by living a rich and fulfilling life that greatly benefited countless others. We all have the same twenty four hours in a day…his appear to have been fuller than most and he seemed to use them to till a rich and abundant garden of experience for himself, his relatives and the human family.
After pondering these thoughts on this amazing man’s life, this morning I read an article that made a point of highlighting all the things that Ted Kennedy left undone, all the things he did not do perfectly or right enough, and all the political missteps he made. This is of course predictable. However, it never ceases to amaze me with its undercurrent of belief that goes something like, “It is never good enough”.
In our world there seems to be a belief in perfection for human beings. It is insideous and would most likely be cognitively denied by its loudest proponents, but the belief does seem to live on—Perfection is possible and dammit THEY should achieve it. THEY are everyone else except the one writing the article, having the Monday morning quarter back session and otherwise being too busy crtitiquing others to pay attention to where their energy goes.
The deeper issue here is that we all live in this world where insidious beliefs like the possibility of perfection hold sway without our full realization. This can cause us to have debilitaitng negative feelings and consequently live in ways that are not productive.
Where is it written that humans are to be (even could be?) perfect? This is not an argument for not trying to modify or improve –only a deep questioning of the damage imposed by such an unconscious and deeply held cultural perspective.
I wonder if that is one thing that inspires respect if not awe in me about Ted Kenedy’s life and his inhabiting of it. He lived large, he loved, he laughed, he made mistakes, he faced fear, death and loss, he expressed what he believed was right and fought for it perseveringly, he risked not being liked and he ultimately appeared to enjoy his life experience so that at the end he could acknowledge that it had been a good life.
An era ends …today I choose to remember that we grow from strength, through compassion and stand on the shoulders of those who have gone before us and shone a bright light through the prism of their humanness.
