meditation on Keith Aldrich, part 1

Meditation on Keith Aldrich 1

Last night at ISS (meets Tuesdays at 8PM, Tower Room, MBSC), we listened to part one of a life lived “way out loud,” and struggled with impressions of authenticity, rights to sanity and how one person’s lifestyle and decisions can place an effect on the lives of others. Of course, this meant we had to bring up to our own senses of self and personal decisions. What values do we live out?

From the written introduction:
“Over the course of his life, Keith Aldrich was a child of the Depression in Oklahoma; a preacher-in-training in booming California; an aspiring Hollywood actor; in the 1950s, a self-styled Beat writer, and then a man in a gray flannel suit; in the 1960s, a member of the New York literati, and then a hippie; in the 1970s, a denizen of the suburbs with a partying, Ice Storm kind of life; and a born-again Christian when the Moral Majority helped put Ronald Reagan in office.”

Mr. Aldrich lived a life of serial monogamy, whether out of a reaction to life in the Church of Christ and its restrictive theology, or to something else, we don’t really know. We do know from the first person accounts of his children that he married, had children, and divorced a number of times (5?). Sometimes, children from one nuclear family came to live with a later family. This left us scratching our heads and a trail of Aldrich relatives struggling to find a sense of place and connection. You can listen yourself by joining us next week for part 2 or going for the whole enchilada at: http://www.thislife.org/Radio_Episode.aspx?episode=121

This is exactly one of our adult issues in life: claiming a sense of place and connection. We are eternally trying to find our way, too. Mr. Aldrich was making serial decisions, which he has a right to do, but we all wondered, “is this a good way to go about life? And what was going on in the minds of his wives? What were they thinking? Didn’t they invite this abuse?”

I’m reminded of other folks, particularly in Genesis, who seem to be drawn to dysfunction:

Genesis 19
8The child grew, and was weaned; and Abraham made a great feast on the day that Isaac was weaned. 9But Sarah saw the son of Hagar the Egyptian, whom she had borne to Abraham, playing with her son Isaac. 10So she said to Abraham, “Cast out this slave woman with her son; for the son of this slave woman shall not inherit along with my son Isaac.” 11The matter was very distressing to Abraham on account of his son. 12But God said to Abraham, “Do not be distressed because of the boy and because of your slave woman; whatever Sarah says to you, do as she tells you, for it is through Isaac that offspring shall be named for you. 13As for the son of the slave woman, I will make a nation of him also, because he is your offspring.” 14So Abraham rose early in the morning, and took bread and a skin of water, and gave it to Hagar, putting it on her shoulder, along with the child, and sent her away. And she departed, and wandered about in the wilderness of Beer-sheba.

As adults, how do our decisions reflect our history? Are we looking for an anticipated and desired future? Can we move on to a higher calling and lifestyle? Or are we stuck?
Age old problems revisited, I think. And we are blessed with the ability to choose. (Of course, the judgment hammer is always meant for others, and not ourselves.)

“To love life and men as God loves them—for the sake of their infinite possibilities,
To wait like Him,
to judge like Him
without passing judgment,
to obey the order when it is given
and never look back—
then He can use you—then perhaps, He will use you,
Every moment has it’s meaning, its greatness, its glory, its peace, it’s co-inherence.
For this perspective, to “believe in God” is to believe in yourself, as self-evident, as “illogical,” and as impossible to explain: if I can be, then God is.”
--Dag Hammerskjold (1st Secretary General of the UN, written, 4/22/1956)