Hanging with LA celebs: whispers of Lady Diana

John and Patricia SchusterMy wife and I do not hang out in the LA celebrity scene. We did this week (October 26), even though an LA gala is not the easiest place to be in life’s later years (more on that later.) I am proud to serve on the board for Whole Child International, a fantastically promising resource for kids at risk around the world, headed by Countess Karen Spencer, social entrepreneur and visionary. She also happens to be a veteran of the LA celebrity scene and is married to Lady Diana’s younger brother Charles, who 20 years ago delivered the hugely memorable eulogy for his sister that is deservedly Youtube famous. At the fundraiser held last week in LA at the Beverly Wilshire, which I attended with Patricia, Charles auctioned off a copy of this very speech. He and Karen also auctioned a weekend at Althorp, the Downton Abbey-like estate he oversees and inherited, so more kids can be served and have a chance at a normal life, even if they are in a not-so-resourced school or a less than ideal orphanage.

In his eulogy, Charles recalled the enormous compassion that Lady Diana had for the world’s less fortunate, and Karen and Charles continue that through this work. In my 70th year, this is one source of purpose in my life that I am so fortunate to be able to say has chosen me as much as I chose it. Almost seven years ago I asked a friend of mine I was teaching with, psychologist and retired Columbia University professor, Dr. Pat Raskin, if she knew anyone whom I could do some pro bono work for. And Pat introduced me to Karen, who had created a wake of compassionate concern of her own doing. Serendipity. Synchronicity. And any other word that might capture the luck of that moment in time.

So I ended up hanging in LA with celebs last week. It was fun. More importantly, it was beautiful to see Whole Child introduced to hundreds of people, many of them of significant influence. I write this post in part to tell you of how purpose can be expressed through service in our later years. If you put your heart out there, network, and wait, which I did not have to do for some reason in this instance (but have in many others, where the wait took months and years).

I also write in part, to tell you about Whole Child, and its place and purpose in the world. And lastly I write to remind us about getting old. Needless to say the LA celeb scene is a hard place to grow old. Patricia and I had lots, maybe most, of the gray hair there. And sadly, there was some fawning around Charles by older women who wanted their picture with him so the glamour of royalty would rub off. More power to you Charles, for keeping your life in perspective.

Hanging with the celebs had lots of lessons in it; hopefully one is to keep our feet on the ground, our heads squarely on our shoulders, and to know that ordinariness is not a bad place to be. It is one of the joys of spiritual maturation that my ordinary life and aging body are wrapped around a beautiful essence that I am becoming more acquainted with. My time to be in my prime at a photo shoot is long, long gone, but the gift of these years is an inner life, an interiority, that I am growing to cherish. It is there for our appreciation if we have some luck and are willing to do some work in learning how to find it.

Whole Child is trying to increase the chances this can happen by giving kids a loving foundation from which to start life. Such a cause is worth going to anytime, at any age.