I was in my late 20s when I first went to Europe. One of the things that I was most excited about was going to the art museums — growing up on the West Coast, I didn’t have a whole lot of access to the European masters. The museums lived up to their promise: I remember standing before a Van Gogh in something pretty close to awe. I was startled by the texture, the vibrancy and the almost three-dimensional quality of the painting — all of the things that are lost in a poster reproduction. But Europe’s museums were also overwhelming: room after room of masterpieces. A time would come partway through my visit to Paris’ Musée D’Orsay or Berlin’s Gemäldegalerie when some aesthetic reservoir within me would become temporarily full. Intellectually, I understood I was surrounded by works of genius. But I simply couldn’t take any more genius in: I couldn’t process it; it wore me out. I’m not sure if this phenomenon has a name. I called it museum fatigue.
I experienced something like museum fatigue while reading Robert J. Wicks’ “Streams of Contentment: Lessons I Learned on My Uncle’s Farm.” In decades of practice as a psychologist, Wicks has accumulated a formidable collection of aphorisms, quotes from other authors and tales from his own experience. These vessels of wisdom —which, for the sake of simplicity, I am going to call Wicks’ stories —are folksy, charming and frequently inspiring. Over and over again, I would make a note in the book’s margin: what a great story! And what a treasure trove, too: sometimes Wicks places two or even three stories on a single page. But, about a third of the way through “Streams,” my enthusiasm began to wane. I began to experience that curious exhaustion which I recognized from Europe’s museums. Wicks’ stories began to feel like music that won’t stop or food that keeps coming after you are sated. They began to feel relentless and fatiguing.
“Streams” is heavily indebted to the work of Henri Nouwen, whom Wicks quotes several times, and to the work of Nouwen’s old colleague, David Steindl-Rast. Like those authors, Wicks’ book celebrates wonder and thankfulness and the key role that each plays in inviting the human being into place of wholeness. However, unlike those authors, both of whom usually employ their stories as a means of setting the stage for their thesis, Wicks tends to tell his stories instead of explaining his thesis. Now, maybe a really great storyteller can pull this trick off — think of Jesus, who challenges his disciples to discern the theses, which he has buried in the field of his parables — but most of us cannot. On several occasions, I ended up wondering what it was Wicks hoped I would infer from a particular grouping of his stories.
Wicks chooses a different literary path than Nouwen and Steindl-Rast in a second, equally problematic way. Nouwen and Steindl-Rast’s works generally contain what my lawyer friends call full disclosure: both are direct and clear about who they are and what they believe as people of faith. Wicks, on the other hand, never comes out and identifies his philosophical and theological home base. For example, Wicks appears to regard scripture approvingly and social justice initiatives disapprovingly. But, because he is unwilling to declare his hand, the reader cannot know for certain.
Perhaps Wicks’ publisher encouraged him to write in this fashion in the hopes of reaching a broader audience. If so, Wicks has received poor advice: when you combine his parade of stories with his diffidence around his beliefs, you are left with a book which is more distant and guarded than it might be. That’s a shame because it clouds Wicks’ vital reminder of what a life rooted in gratitude and wonder looks like; of how finding contentment might be a simpler, more commonsense matter than we allow; of how the path to happiness and meaning might be something our country-based forebears, such as the uncle evoked in Wicks' subtitle, knew better than we do. In the heavily depressed, medicated and addicted culture in which we live, we truly are at risk of losing sight of those streams which lead to contentment. We badly need the wisdom which Wicks seeks to share. And we need him to share that wisdom unapologetically and unguardedly.
“Streams of Mercy” is an inspiring, enjoyable and frustrating book. To put it another way, it is a good book that might have been a great book. Wicks has filled its pages with one wonderful story after another. Had he made the hard decision to cut two-thirds of those stories, however, he would have spared his reader the literary equivalent of museum fatigue. Had Wicks then gone on to replace those stories with his own words — had he claimed the authority of his convictions and spoken in his true voice — “Streams of Mercy” might well have been an extraordinary and transformative read.
