On Reverence as an antidote for self-loathing
Reverence is having deep respect and gratitude for our lives, other people and the natural world. The great and complicated French singer Edith Piaf, known for her epic voice that brought us “La Vie En Rose”, lived a devastating life. Folklore says Piaf was born under a streetlamp on the pavement in the slums of Paris; her father was a contortionist, her mother largely absent. She herself became a mother at a young age, only to bury her child shortly afterwards. Though she was openly criticized for helping Nazis during the occupation of France, she covertly smuggled Jewish friends to safety and helped French soldiers escape from internment after her performances. She is portrayed in films as both a hero and a nightmare with strong self-destructive tendencies. From “French Blues”, published in the New Yorker by Judith Thurman we read:
There was, however, one fact that no one could embroider or dispute, least of all Piaf. “I’ve had an irresistible need to destroy myself,” she said, shortly before she died, in 1963, at the age of forty-seven, ravaged by malnutrition, alcoholism, morphine addiction, ulcers, tuberculosis, pancreatitis, hepatitis, rheumatoid arthritis, and, ultimately, cancer.
The quote, “I have had an irresistible need to destroy myself” has haunted me since I first read it in 2007, shortly after watching “La Vie En Rose”, a biopic about Piaf starring the brilliant Marion Cotillard. Where does this feeling come from? The tragedy of Piaf’s desire to harm herself is magnified by the depths of her talent and the heights of her influence and success. And yet, each human being has depth and talents, waiting to be acknowledged, valued, revered, and put to good use. Perhaps, the lesson is that we must first learn to humbly hold gratitude for the gift of ourselves. It would seem that without reverence for ourselves, no amount of money, fame, success or creature comforts can protect us from ourselves.
In her 2009 single, “Heaven Can Wait”, Charlotte Gainsbourg articulated this struggle with the line, “she’s fighting the urge to make sand out of pearls.” In contrast, a parenting manifesto I admire reads: “Be worthy of imitation. Model: warmth, love, dignity, wonder, respect and reverence.” I believe we can learn to confront self-loathing with reverence for the world.
The late, great Toni Morrison shared in an interview with Eleanor Wachtel her life affirming thoughts on the reverence she holds for the world:
…the world is so beautiful…not just the colors and the shapes and the seasons and whatever but think about it…I’m told it took 60 million years to make a human eye from that little cell in the bottom of the ocean that was sort of responding to light…that is just amazing to me…its just beautiful... It’s gorgeous this world. I sort of thought ‘well maybe if you live over here on the river,’ and no, no, no; its all just magnificent and I think that was part of what I was coming to terms with at the end of “Home”…(her 10th novel, published in 2012)
Turning to the natural world is a thread that unites many who find wonder and awe in their existence. In “The Nordic Baking Book”, by Chef Magnus Nilsson, he describes the reverence he has for seeds:
“A seed is a fantastic thing …we rarely stop to think…about what they actually are and marvel over them and nature in general.
Just think, not only has nature figured out how to turn solar radiation into usable energy in such an amazingly efficient and elegant way as it has with photosynthesis, it has also managed to develop an equally elegant system to store harvested energy almost indefinitely with minimum waste along the way.
These are issues that humanity struggles with today when we try to figure out how to better produce and store energy to fuel our wasteful world, issues that nature solved ages ago without the use of huge factories, rare earth minerals and lots of pollution.
A seed is simply a battery that stores the sun’s energy, which has been absorbed by plants during the bright summer months. To produce a seed charged with just the right amount of energy is simply the plant’s way of ensuring a successful continuation of its lineage. It is the way a mother plant ensures that a delicate seedling, in the beginning of its life, is less dependent on outside influences than it would otherwise be. It is a way for the young plant to grow past the shadowing underbrush to reach for the sun and to grow at a faster pace than the photosynthesis in the plant’s adolescent leaves would be able to support on its own. A seed is also to ensure that even if the climate kills the mother plant, the genome of that plant is still preserved in tact, in seed form- dormant, just waiting for the right moment to sprout and grow and carry its DNA into the future.”
In the King James version of the Bible, we read an ancient parable about having reverence for what we have been given:
Luke 15: 8–9 “Either what woman having ten pieces of silver, if she lose one piece, doth not light a candle, and sweep the house, and seek diligently till she find it? And when she hath found it, she calleth her friends and her neighbours together, saying, Rejoice with me; for I have found the piece which I had lost.”
The parable speaks about the importance of treasuring and revering the gifts we have been given. People, seeds, money, homes, education, knowledge, skills, opportunities, nature…our lives are dependent on or enriched by so many things that we often treat casually. May we all learn to revere our lives, the lives of others and our planet. Let us not crush the carefully sculpted pearls around us back into sand. May we strive to have reverence for the precious and elusive gift of life.
And finally, I urge you to think about “Forky”, the hand made toy from “Toy Story Four” who doesn’t believe he is a toy; he thinks he is garbage and rushes towards every trash can in sight, racing to throw himself away. Thankfully Forky eventually takes a chance on himself and hears the message from his friends as Randy Newman sings: “I can’t let you throw yourself away.”
For anyone struggling with thoughts of harming themselves, please reach out to: https://suicidepreventionlifeline.org/