I think continually of those who
were truly great.
Who, from the womb, remembered the soul's history
Through corridors of light where the hours are suns
Endless and singing
--Stephen Spender.

An interviewer once asked Ernest Hemingway for his definition of a writer. Doubtless, the great artist and incomparable prose stylist answered this question many times in his celebrated life, but on this occasion, he thought for a few seconds and then replied that a writer is someone with a "built-in crap detector."

As a sometime writer, I like to think that I at least have the junior version of this inestimable machine. Thus, it is that my own "crap detector" goes off every time the media rolls out the hype whenever the latest celebrity passes on to the Great Publicity Agent in the Sky.

Inevitably, the celebrities are mostly movie stars, sports figures, politicians, or politicians' spouses. For instance, as much as I admired the baseball legend, Joe DiMaggio, his death, the same week, overshadowed remembrance of the great film director, Stanley Kubrick (2001, A Space Odyssey, A Clockwork Orange and many other masterworks of world cinema).

Overshadowed even more that week were probably the deaths of lots of less well-known mortals, who were perhaps too busy being helpful teachers, caring counselors, heroic firefighters or police officers, brilliant scientists, insightful writers or artists, or great parents raising amazing children to inconvenience themselves with the trappings of fame and fortune.

Sometimes the world seems exactly backwards from the way we think it should be. Indeed, we are always seeing everything reversed: After all, my right hand is your left hand from my point of view. Sometimes it seems as if the people who deserve recognition for their contributions to humankind never get that acknowledgment, while those of limited mind and spirit are all too often trumpeted by the media. Thus, we look up to hunks and "hunkettes" who play heroes and heroines or dress their bodies fashionably or who have refined the twin arts of double-talk and deceit to the most rarefied levels rather than less glamorous but more straightforward people living real lives as real heroes, real heroines.

I do not mean to be too hard on the movie stars, models and other celebrities. Sure, they have their place in our society. However, this essay is a celebration of all the great souls who are not great celebrities, who are not particularly famous, who are sometimes known only regionally or locally or often only within a small circle of friends, if at all.

Such people are sometimes formally called "mahatmas" in India (such as Gandhi). They are "great souls" or "great selves," and according to the The Occult Glossary by G. de Purucker are especially "called teachers because they are occupied in the noble duty of instructing mankind, in inspiring elevating thoughts, and in instilling impulses of forgetfulness of self into the hearts of men."

You could say in a more familiar way, I suppose, that angels are always among us in one way or another.

Of course, I could never recognize all the myriads of people who deserve gratitude and admiration in a mere essay, so out of necessity I must present a rather short list of those people who have actually touched my life. Think of them as surrogates in memory of the millions whose names and of whose accomplishments I know nothing.

I think. . .if not continuously. . .at least sometimes. . .of the following people--many of whom I have never met--who have touched my life in some profound way:

Raychelle Solomon, the visionary, who founded the Optimum Health Institute near San Diego, California. Thousands have visited her holistic living centers and have been helped with chronic diseases, such as diabetes, cancer, heart disease, and many other life-threatening conditions by adopting the natural healing modalities and lifestyle changes she advocated.

Margaret Wylie and Irene Johnson, my high school English teachers, who, like so many educators, cared enough about their students to look into their hearts and minds and minister to the individual needs and concerns of each child. I appreciate these patient souls who encouraged so many of us with words or smiles; who put up with our growing pains, and through untold frustrations loved us so unconditionally; and, who--probably far too often, I fear--sacrificed much of their own personal lives for the education for which most of us showed such scant appreciation at the time.

It is hard to believe that they have actually passed, and I so regret never quite getting around to writing those letters of appreciation that I intended to send to each one.

Richard Brautigan who became fairly well-known prior to his death at an early age. In my opinion he virtually invented a new literary genre with his surreal, comic, but oh so human novels and short stories, and insofar as I know, his novel, Revenge of the Lawn, contains the only known literary reference to my nickname. Thanks, Richard, wherever you are, for calling that little stream, "Tom Martin Creek" and for creating that genuine and highly original prose, which some critics have called, "the Brautigan."

Father Brula, U.S. Army Chaplain, who died in Vietnam. I knew him while I served in Gelnhausen, Germany. I would be walking down a street on the caserne when suddenly I would feel a powerful, bone-rattling whack on the back that always caused me to stumble a little. I would turn around, and there would be Father Brula, a rather nondescript little man, teeth chattering in the German winter with a tiny smile turning up the edges of his lips. "Just wanted to be sure you were ok!" he said one time. Usually he just smiled, and, yet, I felt as if he were sharing some deep, unfathomable mystery with me. I wasn't Catholic; I didn't even know him that well. He didn't patronize us like so many of the other chaplains, didn't wink or nod in sympathy with young men doing those things upon which churches usually frown, such as smoking and drinking ourselves into oblivion or chasing every woman in sight. When he held services, he just shared a simple message of living our lives as best we could in view of the god of our understanding. He was much respected and beloved among the soldiers on the army base.

As the years pass, I sure do miss those occasional whacks on the back. By the way, the sudden "whack-on-the back" is famous in the literature of Zen Buddhism; a "technique" whereby Zen masters literally attempt to increase the awareness of their students.

My late family doctor, who I only knew as Dr. Patterson. He was a surgeon in World War II, and the deep scars from the battlefields sometimes showed in nervous mannerisms. He practiced in our small town for over 40 years, often charging only modest fees or working out generous payment plans with the poor. He probably delivered hundreds of babies in his time, making house calls when children were running fevers. I remember his coming to our house and waiting in his car a bit for a downpour of rain to stop. Then, he came in and took my temperature, and for all his trouble and four-mile drive, finally advising aspirins and water to bring my fever down. Mostly he just reassured my nervous mother.

Thanks also for holding me up when I was a lad of eight or nine so that I could look through your microscope at those living blood cells.

The Peace Pilgrim though not well known is the exception to the rule, as she actually does have a monument or two erected to her. This great soul walked from 1953 until her death in 1981 on a journey for world peace. She walked until given shelter and fasted until given food. She carried little more than a toothbrush, a pen, a pad of paper and the clothes on her back.

During her pilgrimage she walked over 28,000 miles and touched the hearts and minds of thousands. Read more about the life and teachings of this inspiring person in a previous article entitled Peace Pilgrim.

You will find no monuments to these great souls, most are not listed in "Who's Who;" maybe a simple obituary, at most a few words spoken earnestly at a funeral listing a few highlights of a life well lived. With some skill and a good map, I am sure that you can find a headstone in a simple graveyard; most will have no epitaph.

So, thanks for bearing with me; I am sure if I had more time and space I could come up with many more examples, but being all too human, I forget so many of the great souls who have graced my life and the lives of so many others. They have no need for recognition for the part they played in designs grand and mysterious or merely commonplace of gods playful or profound. They are the ones. . .

. . .who in their lives fought for life
Who wore at their hearts the fire's center.
Born of the sun they traveled a short while towards the sun,
And left the vivid air signed with their honor.

.

Editor's Notes: All the poetry quotations are from the poem, I think Continually of Those Who Were Truly Great, by Stephen Spender. You may read other poems by this 20th Century British poet at Bartleby's.