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?

Fantasy

Do you ever stop to think about where you spend your time? Is it in this moment, the only one you have right now or is it in some other world created in your mind where you live a dream and reality passes by?

Is our ability to fantasize a gift or a curse? If we spend our time dreaming when do we live? Or is life a dream?

I went to a talk by a noted theologian, a Psalms scholar, speaking about the Psalms. When his 3 day presentation was finished and he opened the floor to questions four or five different people asked him if there was a heaven. Four or five times he replied, "I don't know." And after each "I don't know," another person would ask again. His frustration mounting, he finally said, "I hope so, I believe so, but all I can do is live here and now and let heaven take care of itself." There was grumbling from the crowd as if the price of admission had been too high for this lowly response. Some people left shaking their heads as if they couldn't believe that this noted scholar could not answer a simple question.

Richard Rohr, a Catholic monk says, "The Christian churches today largely define faith as knowing, and even being certain about your knowing, when in fact it means exactly the opposite. Faith is being willing not to know, and still being content because God knows. Faith is a learned tolerance for ambiguity because I no longer use knowledge as power so I no longer need to be right."

Of course, faithful or faithless, we are all subject to the predilection to look for the greener grass. If we cannot predict what will happen then we will dream it for as Shakespeare once said, "nothing is but thinking makes it so." Perhaps, or perhaps this is the most foolish of ideas. For once we think this we have the illusion that we can control events and make our own dreams come true. And what of those not able to do so? Are they losers, faithless, lower class, not like us? If nothing is but...then the power is in the hands of those who can pretend that they know and can claim the "right".

The thought that every waking moment is a moment spent dreaming of somewhere else, someone else, something else is a monstrous creation. It lures us into a world not real, an intangible creation.

Look around, do you see what is in front of you? Do you smell the good earth, feel the rays of the sun, hear the laughter of children? Look around. Do you feel the coldness, breathe the dryness, hear the rustle of leaves? Look around. Do you feel the pain of the lonely, breathe the sadness of the sorrowful, hear the tears of the wounded? Look around. This is where you live, right here, right now. This is your reality. Do you believe that you do not know what is best, right, coming around the next corner? Do you believe that life is to be lived no matter what comes after? Do you believe? "Faith is being willing not to know...and not to pretend to know....

Shattered Glass

I clipped the last ornament, the star at the top of the tree, to the bough, when there was a pop and tinkle of breaking glass. Looking down I saw the pieces of an ornament littering the floor.  Moving down the ladder with care, my joints creaking, my heart breaking, I made my way to the pieces. Some were glittery and some opaque, some shiny with reflections of the tree lights, others translucent and silvery.

No particular piece replicated the beauty of the once whole ornament. Each piece, a discrete, and uninteresting shard. Tears flowed as I remembered the particular care I took over the years to shelter this ornament from harm, wrapping it carefully in tissue, tucking it into a sturdy box, layering soft wool around the box to prevent punctures or jostles that might penetrate the outer layer of the box.

This small globe of glass given more care because it was rescued from a fire that had consumed my life. I had found it laying among the ashes, intact, no damage to it's shiny, sparkling exterior. No marks or mars to it's beauty. It lay among the burnt offerings of my life. Nothing survived the heat and smoke that roared through the house that night, taking everything I counted as mine.

Except this one fragile globe of glass looking like it had fallen from the sky and nestled there serenely proclaiming that in the midst of great destruction something had survived.

What value I gave it after that. I took it out at times to stare at it even when it was not Christmas. I remembered the trees it hung on in my old home, stately and covered with tinsel and ornaments and lights, shining in the darkness; people stopping to stare at the brilliant light in the window. I remembered the laughter of family, gathered around the table. I remembered the day our daughter was born and our son and a daughter after that. I remembered the days of summer when the thoughts of Christmas were far away and the days were thick with heat and humidity. We would move slowly in the heat fanning ourselves as the sun moved across the sky. I remembered my husband, coming in the door after work, boisterous and loud, calling to the children. I remembered life in that house, an enchanted life, lived by people without care or sorrow, blessed with all that was good or so it now seemed. Staring into that shiny globe I saw love, and laughter, and blessing. All that remained was that shining ball of memory. Holding it gently my thoughts drifting across years of joy, remembering all. No crystal ball conjured up more images of happiness than that ornament from those many years past.

I shattered. The pieces of me lying in the wreckage, each discrete shard of me reflecting back the past. My daughter's smiling face there, my husband's grin when he figured out the plumbing puzzle, my kitchen warm and filled with the fragrance of bread baking, cinnamon smells and vanilla too. Our pets, cat and dog, other pieces of me laying there. The conjured images pieces of a sorrow so vast I could not contain it, a sorrow that spread around me, covered me, buried me. The pieces not beautiful but broken. Where was the soft tissue paper to wrap my heart in, the sturdy box barricade, the wool to surround and protect me from harsh jostling and stabbing pain. All that I had left was that one beautiful glass ornament; shattered.

I swept up the pieces and laid them on the tissue paper carefully wrapping them and tucking them into the box, laying the box in the nest of wool. Silly old woman I thought as I wrapped and tucked; the broken could not be restored. That small globe the only proof of miraculous survival. Whatever resurrection I believed in shattered too. I sat in my chair, broken and bowed. I turned to the tree watching the twinkle of lights and glass, seeing again in my mind's eye, those Christmases past, ones I could not reclaim. I rocked, the light from the tree growing and twisting, flaming with anger, fear, sorrow. Doused by each tear. Outside the snow fell and the black ashes of lament were covered over with white as day turned into night.

Take Down the Pictures, I Won't be Living Here Anymore

Taking one last breath, she passed away. Looking around the small, sterile room all that remained of her life was hanging on the walls - pictures of family and friends, a painting done by her husband, a still life done by a Dutchman hundreds of years ago.

The picture of a bowl, some fruit, a bottle of wine. No human breath gracing it's canvas and yet somewhere in the background, out of site, the sense that a human hand had laid out this table. The colors muted and funereal, the air surrounding the objects dusty and muted.

But the fruit, ripe and asking to be eaten. The produce of some faraway farmers labor calling from the bowl for a disposition. If not eaten left to rot, fruit of life or forgotten fruit. Forbidden fruit perhaps, lush and beckoning, worth the price of the fall? A mere apple, the symbol of the first temptation. Could this red, ripe apple really be the tantalizing source of sinful preoccupation?

Then the other painting, done by her husband. A small house in a valley, surrounded by mountains, cows peacefully grazing. A pastoral scene executed with little skill. The colors bright but not real, the perspective slightly skewed, as if the valley has tilted slightly in the shadow of the mountains.

There is a sense in this valley of solitude and quiet. No humans in this picture either and yet again the sense that somewhere unseen is the hand of a farm family, carefully tending the cattle, a wisp of smoke from the chimney suggesting food and warmth necessary to survival. The great mountains behind looming protectively or perhaps ominously, snow on their peaks suggesting that soon this valley too will be shrouded in the color of winter.

Perhaps this is the land of Nod, the place East of Eden where, after that first bite of lucious apple, mankind was banished to. A place, not unfriendly in this picture but with it's shadows lurking. Different than Eden in it's insecurity, no guaranteed warmth in the shadow of sin.

The woman lying on the bed is still, no breath moves her chest. She has departed this room, a still life. Her last words an odd request considering that she spent her life in pious devotion to an unseen God she believed in and then at the moment that she stood on the threshold of infinity her only consideration was about tidying up.

The family pictures a tribute to her devotion, she bore these children both by choice and dictate. No consideration ever that there was not an obligation to do so, modern science not yet available to offer her another option. Her devotion not in question, she did the best she could and her offspring have done her proud. One wonders if they would have earned a place on this wall if this was not so. Would they have been banished to Nod if they had eaten the fruit, fallen to temptation and sin. An unanswered question. She was not a god but certainly her firm rule in the domain of her family was never questioned. She did pass judgement on the rightness and wrongness of their behavior and there was no question as to her right to do so.

The light in the room changes as the sun moves lower, a dusty grey pervades. A still life on the bed, a still life on the walls, a stillness that is so thick that no sound can invade it. The objects of a life reflected in the stillness. The fruit in the bowl, the small house, the cows, the children. And behind them the stories of her life. Her daughter stands and slowly begins to strip the walls. No one lives here anymore.

Ownership

"Rags make paper,
Paper makes money,
Money makes banks,
Banks make loans,
Loans make beggars,
Beggars make rags."

Someone told me that the heart of the consumer is a heart that cannot love others. It reminded me of the story about Bernard Madoff. Here is a man who swindled the people he was closest to in the world, not just friends but family too. And I think the reason he could do so has to do with a sense of entitlement that comes from not recognizing that, truly, we own nothing, are entitled to nothing, and that whatever comes to us is a gift and a loan.

So I guess it is not so odd that the money maker is now making rags (or the prison equivalent of such). Wanting to own the world (or at least the money of all he knew and cared for) was the trap that led to his own demise. And he was so shameless in the flaunting of that money. Yachts and clothes and parties and all the things essential to the "good life." How does one fall from the pinnacle of consumerism to the pit? And was he driven by a lust for goods, or a desire to have one over on others, or was he just some dumb schmuck trying to get whatever he could before the party ended. Living each day as if it was his last because he knew that at any moment the jig could be up.

The point of the rag story, according to Sister Joan Chittister, is "be careful what you want. It will own you before you own it." And how clearly we can see that in the face of Bernard Madoff. But what of our own wants - the things we silently dream about, or pursue with a vengeance. How much of our own being is no longer ours but belongs to the stuff we accumulate, store, and covet.

As a child I learned the 10 commandments. I was always puzzled by that word "covet". What did that mean I wondered as it was being explained that I should not "want" my neighbors stuff even if it was better than mine or "desire" my neighbor's spouse no matter how much I might dislike my own or be attracted to hers. Is it the nature of human nature to want what we don't have - was the reason for the law that God recognized this basic flaw in our nature? And in the good nun's words - is the danger in possession being possessed?

Ownership, the basic assumption of the capitalist economy - do we possess or are we possessed? Is the engine of the economy the engine of our own destruction or are we above those laws laid down thousands of years ago in some primitive tale that might be the word of God or, for others, a long ago tale passed on by man? Of course in late 2009 we are more able to see the pitfalls in our economic system, to recognize that greed does indeed lead to destruction. And whether God is the source of this wisdom or man long ago understood this on some level, it is easier to see now how coveting may indeed close our hearts to the other. And ignoring our history we are indeed doomed to repeat it and have done so, over and over, for the length of recorded human history.

My mother loved things, she surrounded herself with lovely objects that she took great pride in. Her home was filled with art and beauty. In her last days, though, she lay in a bed in a tiny room in a private home, racked with pain and gasping for each breath. The home was one she would not have sought to live in, the bed tiny and lumpy. But the people there cared for her with love and compassion and ushered her out of this world with grace. The beauty lay in that grace, not in the surroundings but in the people. I wonder, belatedly, if she would have traded all those beautiful things for that grace and love. I believe so. I hope so. Today, some of those lovely things she cared for are in my care. I see them as a reminder to let go of what is not important.