Πάντα ῥεῖ

Clouds over Marin, April 2005

All my personal e-mails end with a quote from Abba Poemen, one of the desert fathers:

Do not give your heart to that which does not satisfy your heart.

This is often a useful guide in making decisions about how one spends one's time and one's life.

Last summer and fall I was eager to get back to Russian classes. Then this spring came and Russian 2 was not offered, so I wound up in conversational Russian. Way beyond where we had gotten at the end of Russian 1.

Now, I am capable of learning Russian on my own with class to guide me and I could have stayed up with the conversational class. If I studied. But I have not been studying Russian. And if you don't do any homework, any drills, any reading, you cannot retain what flies by in class. And I understood no more than 40% of what went in on in class. I think I can say I remember one word I learned in class all semester. One. The rest all blurs together.

So, I could keep up if I studied, but I have not been studying.

My heart is elsewhere.

Right now my heart is in writing fiction. I can work on that almost every day with pleasure. I don't seem to put in even 30 minutes a week on Russian.

I have been wondering for almost two months why I was banging my head against a Russian wall. So today I showed up just to say Thank you and good-bye. I dropped out.

I can do Russian again, when I am up for it. Right now, I am not up for it. I can also do it when I can work my way up through more grammar before launching into conversation where I simply do not know the vocabulary, the syntax, or the word endings.

My ex observed, rightly, that this has given me an opportunity to understand how most folks feel when they take a foreign language and struggle but are lost. So it may have been good for my soul.

This is not the first thing I have dropped out of in my life (two doctoral programs, for instance). I have not regretted either of those, though there was a cost and a loss involved.

Tonight I can return to my fictional world and spin out plot lines and my heart is happier. Much happier.

--the BB


The header is an aphorism of Simplicius that summarizes the philosophy of Heraclitus ("all things flow" or "all things are in flux").

"Ποταμοῖς τοῖς αὐτοῖς ἐμβαίνομέν τε καὶ οὐκ ἐμβαίνομεν, εἶμέν τε καὶ οὐκ εἶμεν."
"We both step and do not step in the same rivers. We are and are not."

An old poem

Abba Poemen


Dozens of distractions beckon daily, calling me
Out of any purposeful path, saying, “Follow me!”

None of these alluring voices, each mimicking Jesus,
Offers more than a semblance of life.
They ask for my heart but offer nothing in return.

Giving my heart to you
Is scary beyond belief. Do not suppose I
Voice no doubts within my midnight mind,
Each quiet pause a chance to freeze with fear.

You did not ask for my heart, you
Only sent me a compliment,
Unaware of the reaction that would follow, the
Response that went from short notes to love poetry.

How many times have you wondered,
Every day, each night, whether there could possibly be
Any chance for happiness with a stranger from so far away,
Reaching in the darkness for a dream you long pursued,
Too tired to follow and too lonely to give up?

Touching you, eyes connecting first, then dreams, and
Only at the last fingers, lips, bodies,

There seemed some fresh new possibility on this earth,
Hope, long buried, bursting through the fertile soil of old decay.
And what my heart has yearned for seemed present with me
Those few days we were beside each other, facing life.

When I think of our comfort with each other, no need to
Hide anything, freely giving and receiving, playing with some grown-up
Innocence that knows of dangers yet feels strong and unafraid,
Chancing our emotions with each other, testing but not
Hurtful, I stand amazed.

Do you think I now will disbelieve what I saw and felt
Once time and distance settle in like dust to cover
Everything? Memory deceives but I am not that distrustful.
Sitting quietly, something I rarely do, I have a certainty.

Now is the time to see if we can build something
Over the miles, yes, and up close too.
To work together toward a common vision, if we can.

Surely we will test each other’s glorious strengths
And probe each other’s hidden weakness. Frailty too can serve
The good if it is embraced with wisdom and compassion, woven into life.
If we would know what is possible, we must seek what is possible.
Surrendering too soon to finding ways to deny, destroy, and part
Falls prey to all the old ways we have defeated ourselves.
You and I must seek what can be, we have settled far too long for lesser things.

You clown outrageously and make faces for my laughter, but
Oh, when you do not try for effect and simply smile, a radiance
Unfolds that cannot be measured. You also play with
Rage, a force I know and lived with, but not an anger that was cruel.

How far do we want to test, or see how much pain we will sustain?
Easy answers are useless. This I know: my heart requires
A solid sense that you want me. This I offer and know it is
Real: I want you, nobody else. This may change as we explore, but
This is the beginning and ground of the heart’s satisfaction here on earth.


June 14, 2002
[It is an acrostic. Slightly altered to remove names.]

“Do not give your heart
to that which does not
satisfy your heart.”

—Abba Poemen

Abba Poemen was one of the Desert Fathers
famous for his holiness and wisdom.
He lived in the 5th century.