Through

December 2024
Portland, Oregon

My family is out and I’m putting away items that have accumulated in the dish drainer. I’m on the phone with Larry, my best friend.

If you don’t know about my relationship with Larry, he’s an 87-year-old retired minister and sociology professor and my role model in learning to be kind. My book, Rabbi Brian’s Highly Unorthodox Gospel, talks a lot about Larry.

Today, I ask, “Any advice about how to get out of a bad mood with greater ease.”

I ask him because it’s the first week of December and I’m kinda feeling more than a bit blue.

“That’s a great question,” he says and continues, “I think our friend Robert Frost, best answered that. He wrote, The best way out is always through.

—

It’s true—the best way out is always through.

—

The first week of December, I was having a hard time — a if-this-lasts-until-the-end-of-the-week,-I’m-going-to need to get back-on-meds hard time.

To anyone who asks me how I am I reply, “I’m on the struggle bus” and I elaborate should they seem to want to continue the conversation.

I was proud, though, that this round of being in a hard place I was able to do so without being in a hard place about being in a hard place.

That’s why I was asking Larry about the best way out of the hard place.

—

I think it goes a bit like this…

Think about the area of three rectangles each with area of 36 square inches:

• Square: 6” x 6”
• Tall/skinny: 18” x 2”
• Squat/long: 4” x 9”

Note: Loosen up on your thinking because I’m about to apply length and widths to intensity and time—which doesn’t really work, but kinda does.

If we feel at a 6” level, it will take 6” time.

If we feel at a 18” level, it will take 2” time.

If we feel at a 4” level, it will take 9” time.

They all equal 36.

Of course there are no units of measure for suffering.

But, I think you can understand my point, nonetheless.

—

Dr. Larry Lincoln, in a gray zip-up sweatshirt and thick gray, walrus mustache, stands at the easel and draws a large U shape. He extends the topmost left point to the left and the topmost right point to the right.

(This is not my BFF Larry. It’s a different Larry—the 11th-most popular name in the 1940’s.)

I’m a participant at a grief and loss workshop in Tucson, Arizona. The weekend is based on teachings by Elisabeth Kübler-Ross, under whom Larry trained.

“This is me,” he tells the 20 of us before him, as he draws a stick figure on the top left, flat part.

He explains as he draws, “We all have difficult times in our lives. That’s the pit, the bottom,” and points to it.

“As a young man, I’d find myself falling into a dark place, a foul mood, and I’d do all in my power to claw myself to that wall, to keep from sliding down.”

We murmur acknowledgement that we’ve done the same.

“But, as I’ve aged, I’ve learned to lean in, to stop struggling, and to use my own forward momentum to get me up on the other side a little.”

—

Listen to Larrys! The way out is through.