Fully Alive

by Timothy Shriver

  As I reflect back on those moments in that stadium, I remember best the brief remarks my mother made later in the day to a small group at lunch. She didn’t like to speak extemporaneously and usually labored over her speeches for weeks. But after the huge festival was over, about a hundred of the day’s leaders withdrew to a function room to eat and celebrate, and my mother rose to speak spontaneously. “Someday soon, President Mandela and I won’t be watching you from here. We’ll be watching you from somewhere else,” she said as she looked above the eyes of the audience as if focused on a point in the distance. “But I hope you remember that we’ll be watching and we’ll be keeping an eye on you and we’ll still be doing all these things that we’re doing today. And I want you to remember all the mothers who are still fighting and trying to find things for their children, and even if we’re not here, we’re going to be still helping those mothers. So don’t think you can stop just because we’re not here…”

  She had never before spoken about her own death or taken the perspective of eternity. She spoke with her lips tight and her lower jaw jutted out in between breaths. That jaw often came forward in moments of stress and became to all of us a primal signal that she was focused on something serious and hard. Her jaw often moved around like an emotional compass in a magnetic storm. When it came out, it was a telltale indicator that she was someplace the rest of us were not, and when it softened an instant later, she was ready to come back, with a decision and a plan to fight. It was as though her face was mapping her path from analysis to resolve. She only shared the resolve. And on that day it was clear: “I’m not here for long but you’d better stay the course.” I could feel the expectations renewed.

  Resolve has its role in social change, and very little good in the world has come without it. “Power is taken, not given,” said Frederick Douglass, and a man who could watch slaves at work while he clung to his own precarious freedom could hardly be questioned. A woman who had fought so hard for eighty years could hardly be expected to stop, so it was no surprise that my mother’s view of the afterlife included a full measure of fight and resolve. Even heaven was not exempt from the struggle. It was a perch from which she could conduct the earthbound battle for dignity. Even there, she would be peering at mothers all over the world as they picked up their phones to call for help for their children. And even there, the fear of those awful words, “There’s nothing for Rosemary. Nothing,” would keep her vigilant, angry, demanding. It was a battle without an end in sight and the inevitable end of her life wasn’t going to stop her from leading it.

  By the time she made her brief remarks, Mandela had left the fields at Limpopo, but before leaving, his staff had issued an invitation: Would we be able to meet with Madiba the following day for tea? Needless to say, that was an easy invitation to accept.

  Mandela’s home was nothing that I expected. There was no dramatic driveway leading up to a grand entrance—no swarm of security officers, no touches to the architecture that would’ve spoken of legend. The driveway was small but welcoming, the entrance pretty but family-size, the house decorated with colors and art, but not memorabilia or monument. It was a gracious and elegant home. My mother and I and our leader in Africa, John Dow, and his wife, Gloria, were invited to come into the sitting room and make ourselves comfortable in the same way one might expect for any home.

  Mandela entered the room with his usual demeanor—a little unsure on his feet, light in his gaze, excited by every introduction. He flirted with Gloria Dow about her beauty and joked that he wished he had known her in his younger days; he joked with my mother about her energy and laughter. He spoke easily about how happy he was to have been with our athletes on so many occasions. We recalled our times together. Robben Island? “Oh yes, that was a good day,” with a lilt in the “good” as if to call our attention to the point. His birthday? “Well, you know, it’s not a happy day for me so why not make it a happy day for someone else!” And then a huge smile. Your knees? “The doctor tells me I can’t walk on them but they are still working no matter what he says!”

  For many years, I’d been trained how to act in meetings such as these. The presence of Mandela meant that the primary dynamic was to listen to him. The presence of an assistant marked the meeting as an official one, even if held as though among friends. I guessed that our time would be limited to thirty minutes, maybe a bit more. Current topics in politics were always of interest. What do you think of the current elections? Of the news coming from the Middle East? Of the economic crisis? These types of questions were ideal for politicians, giving them lots of material on which to opine about what should be done. These meetings were always memorialized with pictures—and most of the time, the most important part of the meeting was the picture taking. Discussion was usually very brief and rarely allowed to go beyond current events, gratitude, and mutual accolades.

  But on this occasion, I was churning inside, trying to formulate a different type of question: I wanted to know how he’d become the kind of person he was. I knew people of resolve and fight, people of dedication and relentless energy, people of gentleness and compassion, people of laughter and warmth, people who lead. But there was something about him that was all of those things wrapped into a package that was more than any of them. I wanted so badly to ask him a question about himself but I couldn’t figure out how without flouting the unstated rules of the meeting. I was so flustered I couldn’t even come up with a way to ask him anything obvious.

  Then it just blurted out. “Madiba, I know this sounds ridiculous, but can you share with us how you came to be the way you are?” Oh my goodness, I thought, that sounds so silly. So I went on to try to alter the puzzled look he gave me. “We’ve all followed your career and read your book and seen you speak many times, but I still can’t understand how you lead with so much positive energy.” Please stop, I told myself, you’re sounding more and more like a sycophant. “When we went to Robben Island, I couldn’t help but think of all the pain and horrors of that place.” Like he needs me to tell him that! “But everywhere you go, you carry yourself with an infectious smile, a sense of openness to everyone, no traces of bitterness or impatience.” Except now. “I’m sorry to ask such a strange question, and I don’t know quite how to say this, but how do you do all that?”

  Finally, I stopped. Thank God. I didn’t look at my mother or at the Dows or at Mandela’s assistant for fear that I would collapse in a heap of humiliation. I just kept my eyes on Mandela, as if to beg him to be joyful once more despite the impetuous guest that he’d somehow allowed into his home. And thankfully, he obliged.

  “You see, all of us who were in prison are the same. We all have the same way about us. Because in prison, we all learned two things. First, we learned humility, because when you are trapped there, you realize that the struggle isn’t about you and is much bigger than you. You’re only in prison because you believe in the struggle and you believe it is important—more than you. And when you’re there for all that time, you realize it very deeply. And that is really humility and that humility brings a kind of freedom. You’re not so worried about yourself anymore—freedom not to worry comes from humility.

  “And then we also learned simplicity. You see, in prison, you learn to be happy and content with so little and you realize that you need almost nothing to be satisfied.

  “That’s it. Humility and simplicity. That’s what we learned—all of us—and that is what makes all the difference. You must lead with humility and simplicity.”

  Woooooooow, I thought. That’s huge. I want that! And before I could control myself, I was blurting again: “Madiba, isn’t that what we all want? But no one wants to spend twenty-seven years in prison to get it—at least I don’t. How do you recommend the rest of us develop those qualities without going to jail for half of our lives? Any advice for me?”

  I felt as if I was on a middle school version of a soap opera, asking predictable questions of a wise character that were not very thinly veiled questions ab
out me. How embarrassing. I could hear myself reciting a squeaky and self-absorbed version of myself: “How can I beee liiike you, o wise leader?”

  But again, he indulged me.

  “You must find it as you can, Tim. You are quite lucky, though. You have the athletes of Special Olympics all around you. I think they understand this very well. They are leaders, too, I think. It seems so. Is it?”

  The rest of the trip is now a blur in my memory. I don’t remember how the conversation ended and I don’t remember how I answered Mandela. We have a few nice pictures to remember the meeting, snapshots of the celebrity-meets-hungering-mortal type. In all the pictures, Mandela beams as usual.

  But the keepsake of that meeting wasn’t the pictures. The sacred breakthrough of that trip took place for me in those few choice words: humility and simplicity. It’s all about the humility of knowing that there’s something bigger than you, and you can find freedom in that. It’s all about the simplicity of knowing that you need so little to be happy, and you can find freedom in that as well. I could hear echoes of Loretta’s speech at Quinnipiac College: “I was given so little but I am with you today, and I am so happy.” I could hear the echoes of the basketball at Katherine Thomas school as I watched my children move across the floor with Eli Johnson and Matt Ficca and Lucy Collins, slowly, easily, working their way to a basket or two a day. “Dad! There’s another kind of fun and that’s the kind that lasts.” I could hear them all in Mandela’s exhortation to work for freedom with humility and simplicity. I was beginning to see how a leader becomes a forgiver: by giving him- or herself completely to the deepest values of the human spirit. I was beginning to understand what led him to our athletes. He understood them. In a way, he was just like them.

  * * *

  I’ll never be able to answer fully the question of how Mandela found the strength to lead, the simplicity to be happy, the humility to forgive. He wasn’t a religious man, although during a discussion with our youth leaders in Dublin, he did bring up the subject. He noted that he had begun to think about religion and was curious to find that part of it that was a force for peace. As if beginning a new chapter in his eighties, he wondered, “What is it in religion that people are looking for?” I don’t know where that inquiry took him or if he remained interested in the topic for long. But it’s clear from the historical record that Mandela didn’t get his humility and simplicity from being a part of a religion. As he said, “I learned it in prison.”

  But it’s not a coincidence that religious experiences and prison experiences are often described using similar language. Monks have their “cells,” and religious retreats often call for “solitary” experiences. Jailhouse “conversions” are common. Many religious orders call for sacrificing the “freedom” of independent life to live in obedience to others. Many religious followers go voluntarily into their roles, of course, and prisoners don’t. But both kinds of experiences remove people from social contact and isolate them, often with limited comfort and food and stimulation. In both cases, the choices and pressure of the outside world are all but eliminated. And in both cases, people are forced to live in isolation and solitude and try to learn from the detachment they teach.

  For a precious few, that detachment leads to unimaginable finds. The kind of humility and simplicity that Mandela describes is not uncommon to people who sacrifice themselves for a person or a cause and endure isolation and loneliness because of it. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s greatest writing was from the Birmingham jail. Great spiritual writers such as Julian of Norwich and Theresa of Avila wrote from behind walls. Gandhi denied himself food and led a revolution from his hunger. They each marshaled the power of humility and simplicity—to paraphrase Gandhi, “the weapons of the strong”—to be irrepressible leaders for change. In each case, with the sacrifice came strength. Ironically, they gave up their self-determination but found a deeper self-awareness. And even more ironically, the victims of oppression became architects of forgiveness.

  Not all people who go to prison emerge like Mandela. Not all families that include members with intellectual differences find their way to peace and forgiveness, either. Not all people who embark on religious quests find themselves bathed in love and tolerance. Despite Mandela’s suggestion that each of his fellow prisoners learned the same humility and simplicity that he learned, many a man or woman subjected to imprisonment turns bitter, resentful, enraged.

  But that doesn’t deny the possibility that many people who undergo great suffering and isolation learn a unique way of leading from within. What they lose or voluntarily give up in comforts and possessions, they gain in authenticity and interior strength. “Hunger, toil, and solitude are the means,” wrote the fourth-century spiritual master Evagrius Ponticus, and “the proof of (the kingdom of God) is had when the spirit begins to see its own light, when it remains in a state of tranquility … and when it maintains its calm as it beholds the affairs of life.” There is a ring of Mandela’s prison-learned “humility and simplicity” in Evagrius’s description of the pathway to seeing one’s own light. And there is a ring of Mandela’s leadership style in Evagrius’s description of the one who maintains calm amid the affairs of life.

  Was that the source of Mandela’s leadership? Had he found his way to his spiritual center, which in turn gave him a leadership power that prison bars could not contain? Had he found a way to lead without needing to demonize or seek revenge because he had seen his “own light”? Most of all, had he become the world’s great political peacemaker because he trusted that same light to be in others? Was that what enabled him to build a government around the otherwise politically and morally reckless premise of sharing power with those who had committed crimes against him and even crimes against humanity itself?

  I think so. I think Mandela was very much like Donal and Loretta and so many others who endure “hunger, toil, and solitude” and emerge as leaders with humility and simplicity and light. They all share an intuitive if not explicit sense of being a part of something much bigger than their egos or their personal success. They lead with a focus on the big goals and not on their self-interest. They acquire power in order to share it and not to accumulate it. They help us move beyond the singular identities that so often divide us, and point to a common spirit that unites us. They create bonds among groups rather than divides between them. They take huge risks by forgiving their enemies.

  So as it turns out, Donal did know the secret of leadership after all: he was humble and simple, but he was also tough beyond description and joyful in triumph. He was just like Mandela: when people saw him, they saw a better version of themselves. He made people want to be better—and what more could any leader hope to achieve? I only hope we’ll find a new generation of leaders who understand how to lead from within, as Mandela did and as Donal did, too. And I also hope that I will have the courage to dwell less on talking about how much I admire the likes of Mandela and Donal and more on learning to pay the price necessary to follow them.

  SIXTEEN

  Fully Alive

  If Loretta and Ramadhani and Ricardo hadn’t convinced me to live with my heart cracked open, Mandela tried again. Still, that’s a hard lesson to hold on to, and I bounce around all the time. One minute, I’m feeling the openness of complete trust, but the next, I’m back working hard to win in the world that Thomas Hobbes described as a “war of all against all.” But then I get inspired again and fall back into feeling the safety and freedom that is the ultimate secret to being fully alive.

  But as William Shakespeare wrote in Hamlet centuries ago, “there’s the rub”: we don’t actually know what the “ultimate” lesson is. We don’t know if our lives are sustained ultimately by goodness or sustained by nothing at all. We don’t know what dreams will come after we close our eyes and cross the line from life to death. If death is darkness and nothingness, then perhaps life is darkness as well, and there is no reason to trust anyone. If that’s the case, then being fully alive means just fighting for everything y
ou can get until you die. But if death is a transition to energy and light and joy we can’t yet fully imagine, then life, too, should be lived in that light and joy and trust. If the universe is harmonious and inviting us to live with the love and fun and grit of the athletes of Special Olympics, then it only makes sense that we learn how to face death with that same confidence and love.

  But how?

  How can any of us really trust that there’s a benevolent universe when there’s so much pain all around us? Isn’t it wiser to try to protect ourselves from getting hurt rather than trusting one another? And doesn’t it make sense to insulate ourselves from the discomfort of vulnerability and death for as long as we can?

  When I think like that, Jean Vanier becomes an insightful guide. He reminds me it’s possible to hug people when you meet for the first time, to hold hands with people you barely know, and to smile into the eyes of people you’ve just met, as if to say, “I love you.” He can do all that, because he’s figured out that if we want to understand trust, we must first practice it. Here’s how he explains it.

  Our happiness comes from creating places where we welcome the strangers of the world and live the compassion that says “you are more beautiful than you dare believe.” Our goal is to end the tyranny of the normal because normality implies that some are welcome and others are to be rejected. It sends a message that there is a certain way you should be and that you will only matter in the world if you become like others who are normal. This specter of normality is the source of fear. What could be worse than to tell someone to be another? The only real normality is the tenderness and compassion of God. If we can make that the “normal,” then we can trust each other to be as we were created: beautiful, fragile, but loved.

  When I heard Vanier speak these words at the age of eighty-four in the small chapel just a few feet from where he founded L’Arche more than forty years earlier, I could feel the presence of so many athletes of Special Olympics who had told me in their own way of the terrifying “tyranny of normality.” But Vanier’s message isn’t simply about how to help those who have been excluded and mocked because they are not “normal.” It is also—and maybe more powerfully—a message about how to learn to trust that we are each in the care of ultimate goodness. “The pedagogy of L’Arche is the experience of loving one’s enemies. We must learn to love whatever appears to be the enemy. Tragically, people with disabilities are often treated as an enemy, someone to be feared, avoided, loathed.”