Traveling through the dark I found a deer

dead on the edge of the Wilson River road.

It is usually best to roll them into the canyon:

that road is narrow; to swerve might make more dead.

By glow of the tail-light I stumbled back of the car

and stood by the heap, a doe, a recent killing;

she had stiffened already, almost cold.

I dragged her off; she was large in the belly.

My fingers touching her side brought me the reason—

her side was warm; her fawn lay there waiting,

alive, still, never to be born.

Beside that mountain road I hesitated.

The car aimed ahead its lowered parking lights;

under the hood purred the steady engine.

I stood in the glare of the warm exhaust turning red;

around our group I could hear the wilderness listen.

I thought hard for us all—my only swerving—,

then pushed her over the edge into the river.

What to do with the dead doe and her fawn–alive, still, never to be born? In my classrooms, I’ve had indignant students who have insisted that Stafford could have saved the fawn. How? I asked. The responses never ceased to amaze me. Well, he could have taken the deer to the vet. [In the back seat of his car? On his back?] He could have performed a c-section and delivered the fawn. [With what? Fingernail clippers? A pocket knife? Tire iron?]  And there have been equally indignant students who have argued that the entire poem could be reduced to a single line: I found a dead deer and pushed her into the river. The Reader’s Digest condensed version of Stafford’s poem, to be sure.

But I probed, asking students if they had ever had to take a dying pet to the veterinarian to be euthanized. Without fail, most had at some point in their lives. I probed on: And could you reduce your experience to a single statement? My dog was dying, so I had him put down. Incredulous, students insisted that, of course, one statement could never represent such an experience. I continued. But you could have kept your pet alive? Again, most students shook their heads and conceded that they had waited, hoping for a miracle, but in the end, they simply could not–in spite of their own love and desire–bear to watch their pet suffer. So it was a dilemma, I said. Spend a few more weeks, days, moments with your pet or take him to the vet to end his suffering. 

The Sanctuary of Dilemma often comes with great cost. As we wrestle with choices, as we contemplate the consequences of our decisions, we must often lose ourselves to find the better way. Anyone who has faced the dilemma of ending a life–animal or human–knows this all too well. It is not about self-service, and herein lies the rub: we may lose a part of ourselves as we lose someone or something else.

At its core, the Sanctuary of Dilemma is founded on initiation. American author, William Faulkner, initiates his readers through the painful, but necessary, initiations of his protagonists. In his short story, “Barn Burning,” a young Colonel Sartoris Snopes (Sarty) travels with his father, Abner Snopes, his mother and sisters, from farm to farm, in search of work. Abner, a revengeful working man, has a reputation for being a barn burner. In angry response to what he considers wrong-doing and disrepect, he has burned the barns of previous employers. In the opening scene of the story, Sarty accompanies his father to court, where the judge doesn’t have enough evidence and ultimately cannot rule against him, even though it is clear that Abner did, indeed, burn Mr. Harris’ barn. As he sits in court, Sarty knows what his father has done and wrestles with this truth.

Later that evening, Abner confronts Sarty: You were fixing to tell them. You would have told him.  He strikes him with the flat of his hand and says: You’re getting to be a man. You got to learn. You got to learn to stick to your own blood or you ain’t going to have any blood to stick to you. In the Sanctuary of Dilemma, Sarty must choose between blood and principle. When his father, once again, sets out to burn another employer’s barn, Sarty chooses principle, running to warn the landowner of his father’s intentions and then continuing to run away. Away from his father and family, from blood and home. Faulkner writes:

Sarty’s initiation from naivety to awareness, from ignorance to truth, from childhood to adulthood is costly but necessary for one who chooses principle over blood. He must run; he must not look back. In the Sanctuary of Dilemma, it may be this way, for initiations push us forward. The consequences of our choices live solidly in the future.

Those who have lived in the Sanctuary of Dilemma know that the landscape is rough and challenging, wholly uninhabitable for those who whose only experience is with preference. Preference is choosing a paint color for your bedroom. Preferring sage to beige is not dilemma-worthy. Some may dramatize their agonizing choices over decor, clothing, vehicles, homes, etc., but, in the end, these are merely dramatized preferences–not dilemmas.

Full-body workouts in the Sanctuary of Dilemma can yield positive results. After thinking hard for all of us, Stafford pushed the deer over the edge into the river. This thinking, this hand-on-the-deer moment, matters deeply. For in this moment, Stafford joins with the deer and natural world, becoming us. In this moment, it is not just about him. And in this moment of poignant connection and contemplation, he gains through loss. Sarty, too, loses his family, but gains a future in which he can live rightly in the clear spring light of his principles and liquid silver voices of the birds.

In the Sanctuary of Dilemma, one may hear these liquid silver voices, knowing that he has chosen well and will, one day, choose well again.