“Life is an incredible adventure into
the mysterious unknown future.”
- Debasish Mridha,
- Debasish Mridha,
Physician, philosopher
The boys were running down the street, one in pursuit of the other. As you can see, they are young and full of life.
“Full of life.” It is the cycle; you know one generation has a run, full of breath and adventure, and before you know it, the stage manager from the darkened house shouts, “Exit stage right." It's time for the next scene.
Man, it seems the play has just begun, but other actors are waiting in the wings. They are ready for their '…time in the sun…'
What advice can be given to those just entering the game? They don’t know what they don’t know…the look of enthusiasm in their eyes belies the ‘…don’t know…’ part.
I might share a thought from the twelfth-century Persian poet Hafiz, “Stay close to anything that makes you glad you are alive.”
What would I like for them to tell me, had they a breadth of thought? Perhaps they would quote Mohammed. “A man’s true wealth hereafter is the good he does in the world to his fellow man. When he dies, people will say, ‘What property has he left behind him?’ The angels will ask, ‘What good deeds has he sent before him?’”
The angels…yes indeed. It's hard to know, isn't it? I mean, what is it we should say? What is it we want (need) to hear?
Confession helps…
I have harbored a sense of disappointment as I look over my shoulder, and as I look forward to a time when I step off the stage and into the wings – angels I hope (pun fully intended).
Disappointment may be too strong a word. Maybe it’s a longing to know, clothed in the realization that I never will. Ah, the blessing and the curse…
The blessing? Belonging to a species arriving on the planet with three astonishing tools in our kit: faith, curiosity, and imagination. The curse? The same as the blessing.
On the one hand, the promise of a yet unlived future. On the other, regret for all that wasn't done…was not said…was not loved. I am not disingenuous enough to pretend I have not experienced both.
A simple thought experiment…
People often ask one another if they had an opportunity to dine with anyone in history, who might that be. The question, of course, is a fool’s errand, irrational. And yet for some reason, many folks find it tantalizing.
In truth, you are only alive as these words pass your eyes and into your mind - the single breath you are taking at this very moment. What you have read to this instant is irrevocably in your past, the next sentence and paragraph still unread.
You are only alive at the moment you read these words as was I when I wrote them. Maybe this is a little too granular a digression.
The thought experiment as to who you might want to share a meal with, will at the very least, cause you to dig into your memory banks for events and people of whom you have heard.
Let the games begin…
If I’m gonna play, I know exactly with whom I would have dinner. It would be my father. By the time the sound and fury of my early years finished and my working life began, he was gone. He slipped out past the footlights and into a waiting limousine that whisked him away, taillights disappearing into the darkness.
My mother was less of an enigma, yet also mysterious. But she did take the time and effort to teach me many things. From her, I got tools to navigate new places, new people, new experiences, all with the intentional foundation of faith. In private, she taught me that fear was a state of mind and not be afraid to step into life’s unknown adventures. In public, she chose the life of a minister's wife and as such, was a quiet and supportive spouse. People that knew her loved her. If they had known how fiercely independent and competitive she was, they would have loved her more!
It wasn’t until my father was gone that I discovered he was a nuanced, well-read thinker, and collector of written thoughts. In saved correspondence and sermons, I discovered his humanity, frailty, and passion. It wasn’t until he was gone that I realized I had never wondered about his mind. We did what I suppose most fathers and sons do, we newspaper reported our lives…the who’s, what’s, where’s, when’s and how’s. By the time the meaningful questions arrived, well, the library was closed.
What about the going forward? With whom would I like to nibble away over mindful conversation and a table of healthy calories and drink?
It would be my great-nephews or newly arrived great-niece. You see, to them, I am an old fellow who plays with them some and tells them he loves them. With the pandemic, it happens virtually through the internet. Well, not the playing part.
Maybe if I am lucky and my health survives the COVID and their teenage years, I might see their lives beginning to emerge…just beginning to emerge.
If it is not too strong a word, I feel some melancholy that I will never know these kids as they become fully formed human beings. Don’t misunderstand, it is not about seeing these boys and girl grow up - although that would be pleasant. It is the desire to see them fully formed.
I would love to be able to freeze my life, let them experience the future as it comes to them at lightning speed. Then when the wine barrels of their lives have matured, find a small café, a quiet place, and plumb their minds. I suppose I would be interested in what they had done, but like my paternal eating partner, I would want to know what and how they thought. What touched their souls? Who had been their mentors? How had the serendipity of life, intervened to bring them to this table and this conversation? If they could turn back the clock in their imaginations, would they want to have dinner with their dad and mum?
Imagination indeed…
Both of these meals, the one looking back to my father and forward to my great-nephews and niece, are figments of my imagination, prompted by an unrequited curiosity.
On the blessing side of things is the ability to create anything in our mind's eye that we like. So many things to be curious about…so many things.
The circle? I have faith…
This leads me to return to the tools with which we arrive on the planet: faith, curiosity, and imagination. Considering the thought game above, I have required a well of curiosity and the imagination to 'see' my father as I would like to have known him and the boys and girl as they might be.
The third tool in the kit: Faith.
In the New Testament scriptures, the book of Hebrews says: "…Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen…" (Heb 11:1)
We know these words to be true because of our empirical experience. The houses in which we live, the cars we drive, the food we eat and the clothing we wear were nothing more than thoughts in someone's mind. They 'saw' something that was 'yet not' and brought from naught the things above because they believed enough to act and bring their thoughts (unseen) to fruition (things seen). We are, as the comedian Steve Martin so aptly put it, "...thought machines..."
In that same way, I have faith in a kind of substance - this substance…I will know my father, mother, great-nephews, and niece in a time and space that is not yet seen. I will know my late sister and others I have loved the same way I knew and loved them in this dimension.
Genuine love comes from a place of mutual resonance…harmonies in the music of the spirit – who knows how? It is not the color of the eyes, nor the dimples in the cheeks. It is the unspeakable but true language, the communion, of two hearts. That is what causes the bond, that is what makes them an essential part of our lives in this dimension and it is what will strengthen that bond in the next.
A thought game or enigmatic exercise? The unknown? Sure. It’s one I have played my entire life…one that I fully embrace…one to which I look forward.
Finally, lest this piece sounds somewhat maudlin, I should be clear it comes with considerable enthusiasm of mind. When the stage manager calls for me to exit stage right, making room for a new act, I look forward to hopping in that limousine and finding those souls past and those things yet to come.
- ted
