Four statements ....

"I was wrong."
"I need help."
"I am sorry."
"I don't know."
"In order to be effective as a detective, you must learn to speak those four statements as a natural part of your life.  Not just during an investigations, but about your life."


Those words belong to Inspector Gamache, the central character in Louise Penny's marvelous mystery series centered in the village of Three Pines Canada.


I love a well written mystery because it is essentially a story about the living we human beings engage in, and the series by Louise Penny is the best I have found in years.  Penny's ability to weave philosophy, art and poetry through her stories populated by a wonderful cast of human beings is delightful.


One of the delights I find in reading Penny's books is I know while reading her books, I will grab an index card and pen and write a phrase from the story so later after leaving Three Pines, I'm able to reflect on and contemplate the meaning of her words.


The four statements spoken by Inspector Gamache to his trainee, have spent a lot of time in the 'mulling and musing' space of my mind.  One reason I have been reflecting on their meaning, is that I believe if we are to evolve and grow into wholeness of being our individually unique person, it is useful to engage our experiences similarly to that of a detective: we need pay attention to what life presents us and look for clues to it's meaning.  Being a 'detective' with our life is a path to learning.


Detectives - good detectives anyway - are aware that they do not as yet understand the story they are being presented with and therefore, in order to engage the unknown, they need to become as open and as unprejudiced as possible to what they are seeing.  Generally, the first order of business therefore in simply 'seeing' what is presented is to have an open mind.


Having an open mind is neither easy nor an especially 'natural' state of being.  An open mind is not 'natural' because as part of our living we develop an ego that is designed to keep us self feeling safe and secure.  One of the primary means to feeling safe and secure is to define experiences of living often in dualistic terms. Although most of we adults have forgotten the particulars of our definitions, the initial defining of life occurs by dividing experience into easily understood categories of good and bad, right and wrong, success and failure.  These dualities of extremes are part of the socialization we do for children so they can function in the world with some degree of competence and safety.


As our experiences with life increase our human tendency is to simply add categories to the unconscious columns of good/bad; right/wrong; success/failure we designed while quite young and so categories of people, occupations, status and even events tend to be lined up under the early columns of designation for what is good and what is bad.  It is from these columns of designation that for the most part, we develop a belief system which generates our attitude toward living.


What I have just said is an extremely oversimplified description of how our individual ego does it's job of keeping us feeling safe and secure so we are able to get dressed and leave the house each day.  The problem is that unless we make the choice to deliberately explore what we have written in those columns that define how I see life, after a few decades of living, our tendency is to get stuck in the rigidity of old ideas.


Old ideas are just that - old - meaning they have been around a long, long time and have not necessarily gone through a process of discernment to see if they need to be renewed or refreshed or redefined or maybe even just plain thrown away.  We all have old ideas because it's the ego's job to keep those beliefs in place - that's the job description we gave it when we were quite young and learning how to cross the street, play with other children, keep from being punished and learning how to acquire rewards from those who had authority over our lives.


By golly, those learning's were important! Living from them not only have I stayed alive, I have relationships, I am respected and I am successful! So back off and mind your own business. 


That's pretty much how our ego responds to the idea of changing what we believe.  And since it's so adamant in it's declaration and may well seem quite correct in it's assessment of respect and success, why would we change?  Why did Gamache tell his trainee that she had to learn to say, I was wrong.  I need help.  I am sorry and  I don't know? Why did Gamache tell her that she needed to use those phrases over and over until they came easily and naturally?


Because each phrase is, in the early stages of learning to use them, a means of shocking our ego into silence.  Each statement is a means to opening our self to right now and what we are seeing in the now.  Each statement  is a means to opening ourselves beyond the confines of a rigid way of seeing and behaving.


I was wrong, allows us to enter into the truth of being imperfect and therefore enables our ability to change and grow.
I need help connects us to other people and opens us to gifts and strengths that another may have and we do not. The words acknowledge that I cannot effectively do life alone and from only what I know.
I am sorry keeps our relationships current and truthful which means that we are freed from the rigid stance of guilt or arrogance, allowing openness and choice.
I don't know activates wonder and curiosity and both qualities create mental and emotional openness for understanding which is required in order to learn.


Learning how to engage and use each of those statements is a journey to being open to experiencing the now of our living granting us the gift of mindfulness: present to what actually is without wearing all our blinders of old ideas and fears. This learning is a journey however.


Journeys take time. A journey of learning is an experience of time that is much more like traveling by covered wagon from Ohio to Arizona than our current option of boarding a plane and getting to our destination in hours rather than weeks and months.  


It's been about four months since I first read those statements, wrote them down, began exploring in my journal, and discovering their energy and power for my life.  After four months they are more prominent as a means for discernment and quite useful when I become emotionally chaotic.  Are they as yet easy and natural?  Not quite and not all four statements.  However, I am committed to the effort of discovery and that is the key to remaining on the journey. As I said at the beginning, I love mysteries and  I want to be a good detective - no, I desire to be an excellent detective - so, I'll just have to admit, as yet I don't know all I wish to know and discover.