One of the more twistedly beautiful poems I read in college was “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner,” by Samuel Taylor Coleridge. In the poem, a strange, old man stops an arriving wedding guest outside a church to tell him an enigmatic tale from his seafaring days. The wedding guest doesn’t have time for a lengthy and random story, but is rendered powerless to resist the old man’s aura and oratorical cadence.
And it’s a tale indeed. After winding up in some less-than-desirable circumstances out at sea, the mariner and his fellow sailors are visited by an albatross. This seemingly innocent creature has little else of an agenda other than to offer company to the crew and to play about. And yet, in an act of inexplicable cruelty, the mariner shoots the albatross with his crossbow.
What ensues is a bizarre series of ill-fortuned, illusory events that terrify the mariner beyond imagination: he finds himself floating upon a rotting, burning sea parched and starving with slimy creatures all around, haunting spirits like “Nightmare Life-In-Death,” phantoms, and a crew that dies and rises again as zombie creatures. For part of his penance, the mariner must wear the dead body of the albatross around his neck as a reminder of the needless evil and woe that he has wrought.
After an ageless stretch of time, the mariner finally gains insight into both his deeds and his own self. He survives these tormenting terrors and lives out his days a sadder but wiser man.
At some point that overly simplistic, childlike manner of literary interpretation kicks in and we find ourselves asking that cliché question, “What’s the moral of the story?”
Many would say, “Don’t shoot innocent albatrosses,” or perhaps, “Learn from others’ mistakes.” After hearing out the mariner’s gruesome tale, how could one possibly think that it would be a GOOD idea to shoot the albatross?
And yet it is clear that the mariner’s harrowing life transformation would not have been possible had he not shot the bird. Some lessons in life—deeply significant and personal lessons—just can’t be learned by heeding instruction, but rather must be learned through experience. Some truths about life just can’t be truly understood unless you shoot the albatross.
Which reminds me of a shameful moment several years ago when I unwittingly shot the albatross of my pride to smithereens. After an ageless stretch of time waiting at a walk-in clinic to receive an allergy shot, the nurses notified me that my serum was not in the refrigerator. Through my mind began to race all the inconvenience and frustration that would result from this act of carelessness. I demanded that they look again. After another failed attempt, they suggested that I go home and look in my home refrigerator. I was rude and short with them; I told them I would, but that it wouldn’t be there. I knew it wasn’t in my home refrigerator. And so I drove home just waiting to be vindicated, marched up the steps, through the kitchen, opened the refrigerator door, and just as I expected…MY ALLERGY SIRUM?!? NO! It couldn’t be!
And there hung that dead albatross around my neck. As I drove back to the clinic with an apology note, my serum and a half-baked idea of what I was going to say, feeling like I should be wearing a paper bag over my head, I remember smiling and thanking God that he had blown up my pride, at least for the moment. I thought I already understood such concepts as humility, patience, personal fallibility, etc. But some things in life simply can’t be learned or understood apart from experience. Often in life you learn humility by first being prideful, patience through impatience, personal fallibility by making stupid choices. I can only be thankful that the nurses were more gracious to me than I had been to them, especially considering that they were about to stick a needle in my body.
This is one of my albatross stories. If in some way my story is instructive to others like the mariner’s possibly was, then great. But I think that far more likely our stories are a beautiful reminder that, for our own personal development, it just may be good to shoot the albatross from time to time.
No comments:
Post a Comment