Ask Me

Some time when the river is ice ask me

mistakes I have made. Ask me whether

what I have done is my life. Others

have come in their slow way into

my thought, and some have tried to help

or to hurt; ask me what difference

their strongest love or hate has made.

I will listen to what you say,

You and I can turn and look

at the silent river and wait. We know

the current is there, hidden; and there are comings and goings from miles away

that hold the stillness exactly before us. What the river says, that is what I say.

---William Stafford, "Ask Me"

I first read this poem about 2 years ago, and as I read it, I remember breaking into a cold sweat. It's funny how our inner voice works...it sneaks up on us sometimes, without warning...and says things that we may not want to hear. I've never been much of a poetry reader, so I must credit Parker Palmer and his book Let Your Life Speak, or I feel sure I would have never found this poem at all. Palmer talks about how some people will read this poem and it have no impact on them and all...and for others, like me, it can be life-changing.

At this particular moment, I find the poem, and the book Let Your Life Speak both comforting and deeply troubling. In theological schools of thought, there are those who believe that God is sovereign in such detail that mankind becomes somewhat of a bit player in a grand drama being played out by God...with God being the one who truly directs (controls, if you like) the outcome, and to some degree, all the steps along the way. In other words, God predestined what will happen, so it's going to happen whether we like it or not.

Speaking of the poem's impact on him, Parker Palmer says this, and I relate: "For some, those words will be nonsense, nothing more than a poet's loose way with language and logic. Of course what I have done is my life! To what am I supposed to compare it? But for others, and I am one, the poet's words will be precise, piercing, and disquieting. They remind me of moments when it is clear--if I have eyes to see--that the life I am living is not the same as the life that wants to live in me. In those moments I sometimes catch a glimpse of my true life, a life hidden like the river beneath the ice. And in the spirit of the poet, I wonder: What am I meant to do? Who am I meant to be?" Does it matter in the end anyway? I don't know, honestly...except I know that within all of us there exists an inner voice, and it seems to matter very much to this inner voice what we do, or don't do...and it can very often feel like we're being pulled inextricably in a direction of someone else's choosing...in a direction that may or may not be what we think we want, or what we would consciously choose...it cannot always be explained, and it almost never goes away.