The Gospel According to Geisel
by Adrienne Meckel
I’m very mindful that a chance to reflect on life experiences and thoughts with my good friends in our Chapel is a rare opportunity. So I am always grateful to be asked by Rick to share a chapter in my life story and spiritual journey.
Many of you this May and June have been attending celebratory weekends as the Meckels have. Most recently we returned from our youngest son JP’s college graduation. Also, some of you may know that I am 2 work days (but who’s counting?) away from retirement … so this time in a way is also my graduation … at least from full-time employment. With all of this happening in our lives, I didn’t think you’d mind if instead of using the lectionary reading for today, I would share some thoughts from two books that are meaningful to me: Oh the Places You’ll Go and the Three Boxes of Life, beginning with what I refer to as the ”Gospel by Geisel.”
I, like you, have enjoyed (and let’s be honest, occasionally tired of) so many Dr. Seuss books reading them over and again with our children and grandchildren. Clearly his talent as a cartoonist and illustrator and his whimsy have cheered generations and helped many children love language… but… his very last book has always had special meaning for me … probably because I was a school principal when it was published in 1990. I was grateful to find it because it has served to provide many graduation gifts and stories. It is the right mix for me of a serious message delivered in a light-hearted way. I also like writers who are idealistic because that suits my worldview so Seuss works for me! It has always been poignant to me that Geisel died so soon after writing this book, the very next year in 1991, so it has had extra significance to me, like a parting gift from a friend. It’s also a treat to know, especially as I grow older, that an eighty-seven year old was able to look back on his life experience and write such a book. There is still hope in the retirement chapter of my own life!
Since I always wanted to dialogue with Dr. Seuss, I thought I would read some sections from his text, share some history of his life and my personal commentary.
First the synopsis of Oh the Places You’ll Go: which reads as follows:
"Don't be fooled by the title of this seriocomic ode to success; it's not 'Climb Every Mountain,' kid version. All journeys face perils, whether from indecision, from loneliness, or worst of all, from too much waiting. Seuss' familiar pajama-clad hero is up to the challenge, and his odyssey is captured vividly in busy two-page spreads evoking both the good times (grinning purple elephants, floating golden castles) and the bad (deep blue wells of confusion).”
I urge you to read the full book and study the illustrations but meanwhile, Geisel begins with:
“Congratulations, Today is your day. You’re off to Great Places You’re off and away! You have brains in your head. You have feet in your shoes. You can steer yourself any direction you choose.”
Ted Geisel was born in Springfield Massachusetts in 1904 and went to Dartmouth College where he did a stint as editor of the humor magazine at the college so he know something about having “brains in his head.” He also knew something about steering yourself in any direction you choose … because he lost his editor job after he and some pals were caught throwing a drinking party. Apparently Dartmouth did not have a zero tolerance policy so he was not expelled from school as many students would be today.
“And you may not find any streets you’ll want to go down. In that case, of course, you’ll head straight out of town.
It’s opener there in the wide-open air. Out there things can happen and frequently do to people as brainy and footsy as you. And when things start to happen, don’t worry. Don’t stew. Just go right along. You’ll start happening too. OH THE PLACES YOU’LL GO!”
Ted Geisel found some streets he didn’t “want to go down” but he tried to please his father by attending Oxford. Then, when that didn’t work, it took a while for things to “start happening too.” He wrote advertising materials for Standard Oil for 15 years. Then, World War II came along and although he was too old for combat duty, he served in the Army Signal Corps with the famous director Frank Capra making training movies.
Oh the Places You’ll Go a personal thought: At the dinner party after JP’s graduation, my good friend said wistfully watching JP, Moya, Gary and their friends,” isn’t it wonderful that they have their lives in front of them!” I agreed of course because I am a very happy and proud mom but I have recently been thinking a great deal about how it is for my generation of retirees looking back on our choices. Most of us don’t achieve all our dreams – how do we make peace with our own unmet expectations ? I don’t have an answer but I continue to reflect on it.
“Wherever you fly, you’ll be the best of the best. Wherever you go, you will top all the rest. Except when you don’t. Because, sometimes, you won’t. I’m sorry to say but, sadly, it’s true that Bang-ups and Hang-ups can happen to you. You can get all hung up in a prickle-ly perch. And your gang will fly on. You’ll be left in a Lurch. You’ll come down from the Lurch with an unpleasant bump. And the chances are, then, that you’ll be in a Slump. And when you’re in a Slump, you’re not in for much fun. Un-slumping yourself is not easily done.”
Dr. Seuss knew something about “slumping” … His first book And to Think That I Saw It on Mulberry Street was rejected 27 times before finally being published.
I feel I know more about being” in a lurch” recently because after 34 years working in education, these past 6 months have felt like I was lurching at breakneck speed to the end of the year because of all the financial crises and now sort of unceremoniously dumped out. Peter tells me that I might be of more service outside the system but he’s such an idealist too which is why we have “un-slumped” each other for 37 years. So how else do we in our community un-slump ourselves? How do we emerge from a slump or a lurch? Our chapel Sunday experience, private meditation, reflection, prayer, the support of family and friends, quiet times of quiet stars – certainly
something we have in abundance in Carmel Valley.
As an educator myself, I also would like you to know that Geisel was asked to write Cat in the Hat specifically as a children’s primer using 225 words that were considered “new reader” vocabulary words. How’s that for turning a chore into one of the successful children’s books of all time? He knew how to keep on persisting to unslump. … and that persistence clearly paid off since his books eventually sold two million copies in 15 languages and he won 2 Academy awards, 2 Emmys, a Peabody and the Pulitzer Prize.
Yet Geisel also knew about the challenges of living well with your inner self and dealing with depression. He goes on to write:
“I’m also afraid that some times you’ll play lonely games too. Games you can’t win ’cause you’ll play against you.
All alone! Whether you like it or not, Alone will be something you’ll be quite a lot. And when you’re alone, there’s a very good chance you’ll meet things that scare you right out of your pants. There are some, down the road between hither and yon, that can scare you so much you won’t want to go on.”
How do we respond to alone-ness in our modern world? We tend to try to avoid it by busying ourselves with activities, by rushing through the day to collapse in a heap … and then find ourselves unable to sleep (oops, I’m starting to sound like Seuss myself!) But, seriously, you know that chronic tiredness is common in our culture. Our time has produced a treadmill where very tired people who are working multiple jobs or extremely long hours then drink a lot of caffeine and eat too much just to stay awake so they can rush around more. But Seuss has some advice:
“You’ll get mixed up, of course, as you already know. So be sure when you step. Step with care and great tact and remember that Life’s a Great Balancing Act. “
Unfortunately, Seuss doesn’t tell us how to deal with “Life as a Great Balancing Act.” Part of the answer for me comes from the second book I want to share with you. You may have read Richard Bolles popular book What Color is your Parachute? In a much less well known book, but one which I’ve always appreciated, called The Three Boxes of Life, Bolles described his idea of how to create balance in life when our culture mitigates against balance..
He said that generally western and American culture wants to put us in boxes – three main categories of School, Work and Leisure/ Recreation. Supposedly, in the first stage of our lives, School should be the largest box; work and leisure small. Then in the second stage, Work predominates while the others are small in comparison… finally, in the last stage, Leisure commands most attention.
The “truth”, however is that healthy people who understand and try to live balance actually make the boxes less boxy and more similar in size throughout our lifetime. How do we learn, work and incorporate recreation into our daily lives? Today there is a lot of talk, at least in the field of education, about creating life-long learners but how much do we actually encourage reading/ thinking/sharing? We certainly do in our Chapel with the Thursday book study; Peter does it at Hidden Valley with Elderhostel programs … What about meaningful work at every stage of life? In other generations everyone worked on the family farm, in the family store, had newspaper routes … these days we tend to excuse our children from chores and community work because they have their school studies and so many after-school activities but we need to be thinking about having our children also be less busy and more engaged. It is important that most schools now require community service hours for graduation but sometimes I think we miss the point by making it a requirement rather than a natural responsibility. We will see what our new President and First Lady’s influence has on this important aspect of life. Of course in our chapel we always have work in the Thrift Shop or maintaining the grounds which helps with the work of the chapel and nicely crosses over to the 3rd box: recreation. What better opportunity to recreate or re-create when working in community and talking about community needs?
I have a special memory from some weeks ago when many of us were in Fellowship Hall packing up bags after a sale. Everyone was talking, sharing and there was such a feeling of community in the room. Working together was fun.
In the end, Geisel and Bolles messages are simple but never sappy: life may be a 'Great Balancing Act,' but through it all 'There's fun to be done.'" and there’s hope for the graduates and the retirees …
I’d like to close with the Adrienne variation of the ending of Oh the Places You’ll Go:
“So … be your name JP or Moya or Gary or Trey or Drew or Mordecai Van Allen O’Shea, you’re off to great places! And I will add, whether you are 6 or 60 or don’t care to say … Your mountain and mine are waiting. So … let’s get on our way!”
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