Spirituality - Thoughts

The Cygnet

by Mark Fairchild

I took a photo of a cygnet once, at the Wyuka pond, while waiting for a rehearsal for A Midsummer Night's Dream to let out. The photo fascinated me, as it still does, because while I was focused on the cygnet, the water around it appeared in the photo as a congregation of planes, each with a different chiaroscuro, reflecting various aspects of its surroundings. I thought, '"This must be what reality looks like to a cygnet.”

I saw something like this before, in 1973, when one moonlit night, looking down from the deck of the TNS Raffaello in the mid-Atlantic, I observed the ocean as a collection of plates, dinner plates, slipping and sliding over one another; reflecting, I am sure, the moon, the ship, the sky, and, of course, the ocean itself.

Today, I prefer the cygnet metaphor. It reflects my life, when, at the age of 17, I left a small Nebraska town, fleeing gun-wielding zealots in an ocean of chaos and fear. I landed in exile from my family (we all agreed it was necessary to save my life) at 13th & R streets in Lincoln, Nebraska. I found great relief and wonder there at 13th & R. Within sight of that intersection were libraries & bookstores, a theater that made an enormous difference in my life, a church that meant little to me then, colleges of arts, science, and humanities, and a wonderful neighborhood brimming with graduate students who also made an enormous difference in my life. I was surrounded by chaos and wonder. All of that mattered, and all of that made me who I am today. I would not change a thing.

Today I look at that same intersection and it is much the same, except, so far as I can tell, that fantastic neighborhood of graduate students, might or might not still be there, hidden among the faceless, characterless commercial architecture of downtown Lincoln. However, there are still young men and women floating amongst the chaos and wonder, not really knowing what exactly to make of it, even while they think they are pursuing their destiny. 

My geographic neighborhood, bustling with life, has vanished beneath the influence of gentrification; turned to mostly oil-stained parking lots and only sometimes bustling school buildings. The new neighborhood has moved, scattered south by a block and more, mostly replacing the once varied and fascinating cultural spots that defined Lincoln as a place of diverse and fascinating cultures.

These young people, eager to learn, as have been young people in all generations,  “think they are pursuing their "destiny,” because none of us really knows what our destiny looks like. That is the nature of the thing itself. At that tender age we are told what it looks like, and urged to form it in a certain fashion, but there are elements that will come into play that none of them, none of us, can begin to imagine. We do not really know what dimensions are involved. We do not even really know what our legacy will be, although again we are too often told how we should shape and form it by others.

Very few of these young university students really know what a university was originally meant to be; I guess they share that with the university administrators. Today, they all tend to see it as an occupational training center, whereas it was actually meant, as a Renaissance invention, to be a place to grow their minds so that they can investigate the universe around them on their own. So much will be lost if that trend towards mere "job training" is not countered.

The things that most need to be taught and shared are neither necessarily taught nor shared at a university today. The elements are there, but often most of them are to be found in the milieu existing outside of university studies. If we are to achieve the Renaissance vision of the university ideal today, we must, sadly, look outside the university alone; not exclusively, but largely so. This is, actually, not so different from early universities and colleges, where "professors" were hired by students en masse as lecturers in beer halls and other non-campus venues.

I am now a member of that church at 13th & R streets, but I am first and foremost a member, or child of, or cygnet from, “13th & R”. I have been a writer, a poet, a computer programmer, an astronomer, an organ builder, a monk, an artist, a publisher, and (as it happens) a Christian. I am also a lover, a husband, a widower, a father, a grandfather, and an old man . . . an utter wreck nearing the end of his days in this universe, undervalued in my social milieux though not, I believe, unloved in this cosmos.

I see all these cygnets around me, and want so very much to help and protect them; they are “babes in the wood”. The Wyuka cygnets were eventually snatched by owls and devoured, as have been some of my friends over the years in our educational institutions and social organization. Both students and faculty need, and deserve our assistance in helping form the destinies of our youth (and that of our society and culture) . . . of our cygnets.

© Mark Fairchild, 2024