Understanding

You must understand the whole of life, not just one little part of it. That is why you must read, that is why you must look at the skies, that is why you must sing and dance, and write poems and suffer and understand, for all that is life."
— .J Krishnamurti, Think on These Things

I am trying to understand life, I dance, I sing, I write, I read - and yet my life is a puzzle piece in a bigger puzzle for which I don't have an understanding. Things that seem perfectly obvious to me must be misapprehensions on my part because I find few others who think in the same way. Take suffering for instance - I will grant that it's part of life but my understanding of suffering is that we should try to ease it, to console those who are suffering, to reduce the burden under which they strain. And yet suffering is the way of most of the world. Few are free from it, many never have one moment without it. And those who appear to suffer the least also appear to be the most indifferent to the suffering of others. But I will grant that it is life.

And perhaps that is the conundrum of suffering - that it exists, that it is incomprehensible, that it does not honor one's station in life or one's honor or one's morality Suffering is the leveler of those who suffer. And a reminder to others that the capricious nature of suffering grants no one protection. When we hear of the suffering of others it causes us to pull the blankets closer, to hug our loved ones more, to hold on tighter to that which we could lose without a moment's notice.

Maybe that is exactly the wrong reaction, perhaps holding on is the most impossible in the face of unpredictability. Perhaps we must sing and dance and write poems  in the face of suffering, to let wretched fate know it does not have the final word, the last say. When we understand the whole of life we recognize that suffering exists but does not trump life.

You hear people who have lost much, suffered greatly, talk about their appreciation of what they still have, their family, their photos, their memories, their minds, their bodies, their hearts. They can still sing and dance even if it is with more awareness of the price of the gift. And is not the triumph of spirit that we do. When I was young and someone in our family died the wake was always a great raucous affair with lots of drinking and hugging and yelling and crying. I kind of got that but what I couldn't understand was the laughter - when my aunts and uncles and parents would let out great whoops of laughter over memories of the dead person. They would laugh until their sides hurt, their eyes watered, gasping for breath. It would shock me, why were they laughing when Grandma was dead. To my young mind it seemed incomprehensible - the occasion called for more solemnity and sorrow I thought. Weren't they the greatest role models for understanding that life is greater than death, the sky more immense than the small patch of earth where I live? So in their own way my family sang and danced in the face of the mystery of death and loss.

Even today I can hear that laughter echoing through time and space. The laughter of healing and consolation. I visited India many years ago and was stunned by the overwhelming poverty and squalor. There was no escaping it, everywhere you looked it was. And yet what remains in my mind is the great artistry of the people there, the beautiful things they created with hands that were crippled, and with no means to escape the cruel circumstances of life. And their great wedding celebrations that went on for days and that whole villages participated in. And everyone danced the groom to the bride and sang and celebrated this uniting as if there was nothing in life that could be more important or sacred. And the beautiful Hindu temples with their great statues of monkeys and elephants, rooms bejeweled and pristine. All this in a land of squalor.

My hope is that we never take for granted the circumstances that grant us comfort and security for they are temporary. Suffering is part of life. And in it's face we need to learn to offer comfort, to hold on to one another, to dance and sing and read and thank God for this great incomprehensible mystery of life that gives us so many opportunities to love and comfort and support each other. I may never understand the whole of life but I do now understand those great whoops of laughter echoing again and again in my heart as I behold the whole of life.

JOY

"Joy to the world, all the boys and girls, joy to the fishes in the deep blue sea, joy to you and me"

I was reading this story about the Israelites being led through the Red Sea and freed from their bondage in Egypt. A story of emancipation. And by the time their "freedom" was 3 days old they were complaining; thirsty, tired, want to go back, bored, scared, etc. etc. This joyful celebration of release from bondage lasted 3 days. 3 days. And I'm thinking that it's not really too surprising.

Not so surprising I guess. When you think about it when was the last time that you felt JOY? The grab you by the ass, laughing, loving the world, hugging everyone JOY. Or the quiet, peaceful, contented, deep in your heart JOY that surpasses all understanding. Or the amazed, awed, wonderment of creation JOY.

You remember that picture of the sailor kissing the girl on the streets of New York at the end of WW II? Can you feel that JOY? You wonder if he held on to that joy or if he got over it in 3 days and went back to a dull, boring, not so joyous life. Did he remember that kiss, or freedom from the horror of war, or the amazement of victory over evil, when he was sitting quietly at his kitchen table? Did his heart warm and his eyes well up as he let the joy take him?

I believe in God and I believe that God is. And having said that I wonder where the JOY is in that? This God who has promised to walk with us, this God who has appeared again and again when no one expected God. This God who sent his Son to become at-one with us, for us. And I ask myself why this knowledge of this God is not enough to ignite JOY in my heart every day, this God who is the source of all that I believe to be holy and true. Is my loss of JOY due to lack of faith, or hope or love?

Satisfaction

The Rolling Stones immortalized the words, "I can't get no satisfaction" to a generation of boomers. Or perhaps the words of John Mellencamp, "I ain't never satisfied." This dissatisfaction finds it's roots long before that time though. In the Old Testament the LORD brings the people of Israel out of exile in Egypt, rescues them from slavery and death at the hands of pharoah by parting the Red Sea to let them pass. They are a few days in the desert, on their way to the promised land, and they begin to gripe about the situation to Moses. They are not happy with how things are going and kvetch about their circumstances. They want to go back to Egypt and return to their former situation as slaves. There is no popular rush of worship and adoration for this God who has rescued them to remind them of who their god is, no initiative even to make Moses president or prime minister. Only complaint about the unknown journey on which they have been dispatched. The lack of appreciation is duly noted by the LORD who suggests that perhaps an appropriate measure for this lack of gratitude would be annihilation. Moses bargains for the life of his people God relents in part.

 

The sea parts and freedom beckons as the water swirls above them. Fear and awe in equal measure well up in the throats of the people. Behind them Pharoah's army approaches. Their choice is to take the parting sea road or face the army. What would you do? You would run like hell for the parting sea road and not look back, is my guess, and exactly what they did. And as the last one stepped into freedom the sea roared back and the army of Pharoah perished in it. Wonder and awe? Did you see that? What just happened?

At that moment one's mind snaps closed. Who can begin to comprehend this? Some power beyond comprehension has intervened to save me? How can that be? O.K. let's just move on and pretend like this didn't happen. Denial is a river in Egypt! Whatever just happened is better forgotten because whose mind can grasp this reality. It's like superman swoops down and the sea parts and the bad guys die. Come on, we know better than that. Anyway, what kind of freedom is this, we're hungry, tired, thirsty, scared and uncomfortable. Man, Egypt is starting to look better.

Dissatisfaction is familiar. It is easier to grasp than a parting sea, than God, than even superman. Dissatisfaction is the fuel of the world. It drives our search for more, better, bigger. Dissatisfaction puts our fate back into our own hands and negates the possibility of a power beyond us. Dissatisfaction drives us forward. Dissatisfaction takes the place of God.

What a wonderful gift to have those moments of wonder and awe, to unlock a world where not only Santa Claus but an eternal presence visited us. What a wonderful and incomprehensible gift.

Satisfaction. Is it the result of memory or appreciation or is it a gift of knowing that even in the times when everything is going wrong there is the possibility of something more?