49/50: Toast with Butter and Chocolate
From Brandi’s newest album. This song says everything.
“Stay gentle, keep the eyes of a child
Don’t harden your heart or your hands
Know to find joy in the darkness is wise
Although they will think you don’t understand
Don’t let the world make you callous
Be ready to laugh
No one’s forgotten about us
There is light on your path
Stay gentle, keep the eyes of a child
And wear your heart on your sleeve
Know to find joy in the darkness is wise
Although they will think you are naive
Don’t let ‘em lower your shoulders
Love ‘em more while they try
Grow younger while you’re growin’ older
Be amazed by the sky
Darling, stay wild if you can (if you can)
The girl with the world in her hands (in her hands)
The kingdom of Heaven belongs to a boy
While his worry belongs to a man
Stay gentle, stay gentle
The most powerful thing you can do
Oh, gentle, unbreakable you.”
I’m spending my fiftieth birthday week in Bruges and Amsterdam. My soul has always recognized this part of the world in a way that feels ancient and familiar since I first visited at eleven years old. It’s particularly poignant to be back in these spaces after the lockdowns, knowing it’s not given that you can get on a plane and be here.
Shopping for groceries on our first day, I bought sliced white bread for toast, salted butter and dark chocolate spread. This is my favorite breakfast in the world that only tastes right when you are in Belgium. I rarely allow myself such indulgence at home with a strict protocol of protein, carbs and fat that keeps my weight at clinically mildly overweight.
At some point, I thought I might outgrow toasted bread with butter and chocolate. I thought I might outgrow a lot of things. To be sure, there has been a marked maturity over time, but there are so many parts of myself that still feel childish and unformed. There is so much wisdom I long to gather.
We are presented with a view of maturity that looks like having it all together. And I keep thinking that’s what wisdom will feel like. Every aspect of my life will be in control. I’ll blow into the room with confidence and perfection. I won’t trip up on what others think of me. I’ll always have the right answer.
One of the graces of my job is spending time with people several decades ahead of me. It makes turning 50 a lot easier when they look at me with bright eyes and tell me how much they loved being 50, as if I was only turning 25. It also helps that I have an intimacy with them that allows me to see those who age most gracefully are most young at heart. My dear friend Anne, at 86, keeps telling me she’s only just learning to meditate and be in the moment. This comforts me.
I think about ancient King Solomon a lot. How he only asked for wisdom when he became king. I remember that he had other appetites too — women, power, beautiful things. But at his clearest and most vulnerable, he longed for wisdom. Staying close to that longing was the north star to find wisdom, which is logical, but not always obvious. Instead, we seek the appearance of wisdom through posturing, possession, stubbornness and false piety. But wisdom is returning to that tender space within us that knows we can’t do life alone and every bit of life is grace, is gift.
Wisdom ironically requires quite a bit of child likeness. “Whoever doesn’t welcome God’s kingdom like a child will never enter it,” Jesus said. Or as Brandi Carlile puts it, “Stay gentle.” Living life undefended is the only conditions in which wisdom can be found and it is what we most fear. While I thought I would wear wisdom like a suit of armor that would prevent me from being hurt, it is wisdom that keeps me more like a child, with curiosity and vulnerability as my best tools.