Dr. Mary Hembrow Snyder

Alegria

The poet Mary Oliver writes in her most recent collection, Red Bird, this stanza:

"Instructions for living a life:
Pay attention.
Be astonished.
Tell about it."

Having turned sixty years old last month, her instructions poignantly capture the heart and soul of what I have come to believe as I begin this new decade of my "one wild and precious life…"

"Pay attention" Oliver writes. Really, I thought I had been paying attention during my fifties. They were quite challenging years. However, when all is said and done, I can honestly admit I had not listened deeply enough to my truest self, to the faithful voice of the Holy One, or to the "messengers" being sent to me. I was pretty unconscious about many things, caught up in a kind of "false sight" which kept me from recognizing the truth about the choices I was making and why, deep down, I was making them. Ruptured relationships, stress at work, and, ultimately, profound honesty about how blind and deaf I had become, coalesced in heart-wrenching fashion to bring me to conversion, i.e., to a graced awareness of my need to turn my life around, inside out.

Intentional periods of solitude and silence, much prayerful reflection, a transformative trip to Europe, as well as illuminating conversations with the crones and bodhisattvas in my life, were key graces that brought me to deeper self-understanding. This part of my journey required a great deal of difficult inner homework; succinctly, I had to face my demons. These were demanding inner struggles with a long history which I thought I had "exorcised" earlier in my life. Thus, I began to pay attention differently - at a level I was not previously willing to explore. It was painful; it was lonely. But it was also an incredibly liberating part of my journey. I knew I was approaching a precipice as I approached the end of my fifties. Either I listened to the message these years of struggle were giving birth to or I went on living a life of "quiet desperation." The message was Shakespearian in its wisdom: "But above all to thine own self be true for thou canst not then be false to any man [or woman]."

Needless to say, I have been nothing but astonished at the results. Mostly, I am astonished at all that has been given to me because I was finally willing to pay attention. In the process, I have embraced my demons; they won't disappear, but neither will they feast as flagrantly on my "false sight." Paying attention gives birth to consciousness; consciousness empowers one to choose life.

Hence, as my sixties unfold, I promise to keep trying to pay attention and to relish being astonished. Furthermore, I want to tell you something else. As the poet Stanley Kunitz declared when he was in his nineties, " I am not done with my changes." This I believe.

Mary Hembrow Snyder, Ph.D.
Mercyhurst College
April 18, 2008

About Dr. Mary Hembrow Snyder

Dr. Mary Hembrow Snyder has been affiliated with Mercyhurst for twenty-two years. She has served in many capacities: faculty member, department chair, division chair, associate dean, senior academic officer and dean. Currently she is Dean of the School of Arts & Humanities and Professor of Religious Studies. Her favorite aspect of the college is "the predominant lack of pretentiousness among students, faculty, staff and administration."