The loss of a Guru

One of my very favorite authors, my "gurus," is gone. Dr. M. Scott Peck died Sunday, September 25, 2005 at his home in Warren, Connecticut. He was 69 and he died of cancer. (Today's title link is related because the author quotes Peck, see the paragraph following the blue (9) footnote.)
He was a very special man, a complex psychiatrist, a good writer, a great speaker, and a spiritual seeker. I am glad I was smart enough to attend one of his teaching workshops in the mid '90's, and glad I sat on the front row. (Those of us who have gurus, do that, of course).
Many others will miss "Scotty," as he called himself. Here are several stories about his life and works:
New Milford Connecticut was where Dr. Peck was located when he wrote his biggest best seller, The Road Less Traveled. It sold more than 6 million copies and made him very rich. My well-worn copy still has the book mark, where I left it several years ago, after I retired from my work as a psychotherapist. The place it held, p. 165, marks his inclusion of a wonderful poem about parenting (probably the best ever) from The Prophet. I often read it to clients who were having difficulty letting go of grown children. I quote:

"Your children are not your children.
They are the sons and daughters of Life's longing for itself.
They come through you but not from you,
And though they are with you they belong not to you.
You may give them your love but not your thoughts,
For they have their own thoughts.
You may house their bodies but not their souls,
For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow, which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams.
You may strive to be like them, but seek not to make them like you.
For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday.
You are the bow from which your children as living arrows are sent forth.
The archer sees the mark upon the path of the infinite, and He bends you with His might that His arrow may go swift and far.
Let your bending in the archer's hand be for gladness;
For even as He loves the arrow that flies, so He loves also the bow that is stable."

This is the excellent New York Times article on the death of Dr. Peck. The online version of Christianity Today reprints an article on his book People of the Lie, which is the book that Peck thought was his best. And, finally, this is a rather lukewarm book review of Glimpses of the Devil, his last book. It is about exorcism.
Scott Peck took his spiritual seeking much more seriously than I have been able to do. For example, though he was not a Roman Catholic, he went on retreat every year to a convent. He believed that the nuns would provide the requisite unflinching guidance towards growth that he needed. He believed in the existence of evil. And he practiced many of the internal disciplines of eastern religion. And he was no doubt a very fine therapist, a scientifically well-grounded doctor of psychiatry.
My training was as a clinical social worker. I had walked a very different academic path than Dr. Peck, but I know that my clients gained a bit of the benefit of his wisdom through me. That's what true "gurus" do, they pass it along. It is a kind of immortality, if you think about it. I honor him for that today.