What do I know? Not much...(Part 3)

“Hey, do you know what you want?

Just askin’…”

- anonymous 

The first instance:

Why do you do what you do? 

Look away from this page and think about it for a moment or two.

Your first thought might be, “What does he mean?  My job? My family?  My relationships?  My hobbies?  I’m not sure what he means.”

At the moment, there are no criteria other than simply taking a moment, no matter how vague the answer and see whether you find any resonance within yourself.

The second instance:

Why have you taken the time to figure out things for which you have talent? 

After all, you arrived on the planet with no roadmap, no traveler’s guide to the universe, and no direction to the meaning of life.  By the way, does your life have meaning?

You showed up, were given a few generic tools – a language, some food, and a little protection for period of time.  Then came some very rudimentary rules about this brave new world and off you went!  Knowing neither from whence you came, nor the destination to which you are compelled – you are compelled you know!

Fortunately, entering into this ‘Brave New World,’ others before us have provided guidance – if we accept it – to help reduce life’s friction.  But like learning the alphabet, we first have to accept the ideas and act on them…getting around in life takes time. 

As you know, it works like this.  First come the letters, often memorized through verse or song.  Next specific combinations into words – again memorized and repeated.  Finally sentences which express simple ideas.  Eventually, the alphabet becomes an incidental (albeit important) tool to express streams of conscious thought from one to another – fulfilling a need that was unknown when the process began.  Like planting seeds in the field, written language only has real meaning once it has matured and re-produced after its kind…fulfilling the destiny of those simple and singular letters.

Why do you do what you do?

This piece began over coffee with my friend Bill a few weeks ago.  It led to a number of thoughts and wonderments as to what our lives might have been like had we made different choices.  We got it that once experiences were written on the pages of our lives; they are unchangeable, yet it was nice to reach into the recesses of our minds to visit old friends and life’s familiarities.

The conversation then drifted toward what if anything is next. 

What is next?  That would be the question wouldn’t it?  After all we were given tools to help us navigate life on this earth, but what tools have we been given for what’s next?

There are writers, philosophers, theologians and prophets who have provided us with spiritual guidance for the next stage of our journey, but where is the evidence?  How can we know for certain?  Is it about faith alone?  Is there something we must do?  Are there certain ways we must live?  Is there really something more than this finite journey that will of little doubt terminate?

Why do you do what you do?

This broader question has occupied my mind for decades.  So let me put it into a more personal context.  Why do I do what I do?  Why have I done what I have done?

Had I tried to answer this question earlier in my life, I would have had little to say, because there was little I knew.  In the early decades, it took all the energy I had to learn the alphabet (accept certain teachings – just because)…decades to learn the alphabet of the ‘what’ before I could approach the ‘why,’ and decades to find the vocabulary necessary do discover even the beginnings of an answer. 

The overreaching context for these thought has been ‘what do I know?’  Not just think…not simply believe…but know (Knowledge: The fact of condition of knowing something with familiarity gained through experience or association.” – Webster’s).

I now know why I have done the things I have done…and why I do the things I do.  All of them have been directed toward a desire to live forever…to never die. 

After all, from the Launchpad of birth, and through every experience we encounter, we grow and increase in our knowledge and understanding.  We are not geared for failure, but for success – surely there are things we attempt in the process of refining our lives that miscarry, but we do not begin something with the idea that it will end up in failure.

This drive, this primal urge has led to the following simple questions and observations:

What do you do when you are hungry?  How about when you are cold?  When the weather is inclement? 

In our lives, almost all of the desires we have, whether physical, as above, or spiritual (e.g. knowledge, wisdom, faith, love, tenderness) have mechanisms for satisfaction – the instinctive hungers able to be fulfilled.  I am not saying all of them are…but rather as a species, we are able to find ways to quench our needs.

There is, however, a need that we are unable to satisfy.  It is a need that drives us with a primordial undercurrent that is as strong as any urges we have.  It is the need, the overpowering and unrelenting desire to be remembered…to have meant something…to have been relevant…to have counted.

Do not underestimate this.  Empires have been built, civilizations created, novels written, families procreated all in the name of remembrance.  And yet, with the tiniest of exceptions, this elusive mist slips away with the dawning of a new generational day.  The greatest of individuals of the eras in which they lived, for the most part are not even footnotes in the pages of history.

Legacy?  Seriously?  The people who build die…those who remember them die…and eventually the pebble of that life sinks to the bottom of the pond, as the next pebble hitting the water overwrites the concentric circles of their accomplishments.

Rather than seeing what appears to be wasted energy for fame as a commentary on the meaningless of life and effort, I see this drive as an insight into the eternal…Simply a misunderstanding in the grasping and use of this most primitive of driving forces on our lives.

Why would we be given a spiritual hunger that could not be satisfied in this life?  It is because attempting to satisfy it in a physical sense only is a misplacement of its enormous power – the power to transcend this part of our journey into its next stage.

To be continued...

- ted

What do I know? Not much...(Part 2)

“Faith (fãTH) – Complete confidence

in someone or something.”

“Knowledge (‘nälij) – The fact or condition of knowing something

with familiarity gained through experience or association.”

- Merriam-Webster Dictionary

Bill and I continued the chat as it moved into what we feel might happen next.  Next, meaning what happens after life on earth.  This sort of conversation is part of the faith structure each of us has. 

For many, there is nothing after this life.  Socrates, just before drinking the poisonous hemlock, suggested two options at death: Nothing or something.

      1. Nothing would not be so bad, after all, who would not appreciate a long and  uninterrupted sleep?   

        2. Something, on the other hand, would be great.  What an opportunity to mingle with the great minds of history!

“Something” was his belief and fits well into the Christian tradition, where after this life, in Heaven, we interact with the Father Himself…the originator of the intellect of all the great minds!

The Apostle Paul put it this way.  If in this life only we live, let us eat and drink, because tomorrow we die…meaning, if the vapor of our lives is all there is – what’s the point? (1Co 15:32 – Bible)

Questions come honestly…

Among my father’s ministerial gifts, he was a great pastor.  Outside the pulpit, which held him a willing captive, he loved nothing more than visiting people who were ill and those close to the end of their lives.  He was gifted and brought a sense of calmness his parishioners truly appreciated.  I often wondered what it was that drew him to those for whom the “…valley of the shadow of death…” loomed so closely.  I assumed it was to instill in them a few last words of faith to help carry them ‘…through the veil…’ – to find themselves with Christ.

In later years, I came to understand, as with many things in life, it was different than what it seemed. 

In addition to being a standard bearer for Christ, dad was an honest man…honest with himself.  A man for whom faith was key, but also a man for whom questioning was necessary.  It was not enough to ‘put things on the shelf,’ waiting passively for an answer to emerge.  He was compelled to continue searching…hoping for greater insight. 

To his congregation and others he would say some things were a matter of faith…that exacting proof was not necessary “…in this life…” And yet for him, and his son…revisiting, questioning, not settling, prodding and poking around the edges his faith was as important as breath itself.

“…in this life…” is the basis for the importance he placed on being with his flock as they neared the end of their journeys.  As it turns out, in addition to bringing them comfort, he also sought personal insight as to what they perceived or understood as they approached their final breath.  Did they see something richer…deeper?  Might one of these folk share with him and inform his faith?  It was as if he hoped God might give those slipping away a more profound sense of the transition. 

It wasn’t that he doubted…or maybe he did in some respects – surely all of us do.  He simply sought more as he prepared for the inevitable end of his voyage.  In the end, as he acknowledged to me, this illumination never came.  He left this world full of faith, but uncertain…not of his destination, but rather how he might find his way.  The dogmatic theologue, who suggests weakness if there is uncertainty, has probably spent more time thinking than living, or conversely had such a transitional experience that faith alone, is more than enough.  For some it is…for him it was not.

Christ said if one knew the truth, it would set them free, suggesting anything that increases our freedom is that much more truth we have acquired.  Freedom comes from discipline and hard work, as the apostle Paul indicates, “…tribulation worketh patience; and patience, experience; and experience hope…” (Romans 5:3 – Bible).

The father – the son…

While the ‘belief’ portions of my life have carried the day in many instances, faith in and of itself has not been enough.  I have ‘…asked, sought and knocked…’ looking for evidence…not just to believe, but also to know of some things yet unseen.  This has NOT been driven by doubt, but in defense and confirmation of the things I have believed, and through consistent repetition of the things I have experienced in my life.

In the framework of afterlife…in my heart…there is evidence…enough evidence to bring a sense of greater wonder and longing for the next step.  There is little doubt faith has been the bridge, for faith is the substance of things hoped for; the evidence of things not seen…it is the magnetic force that brings the universe to us as surely as gravity (also unseen) pulls us the surface of the earth.  And yet having faith without exercising it…working it…growing it…produces nothing.  This is the story of the scripture.  Whatever we are given must be exercised to be of any value.

What I know…

I have tried to express this in the past, but one’s personal reality, is simply that…personal.  So here is what I know – with no doubt or question.  Informed by the scripture…confirmed by my life experience.

Life – of the soul…us – is a journey of undefined depth and breadth.  It is NOT simply a vapor of a few short decades, coming to a screeching halt at the final expiration of our physical breath.  Falling asleep, as Christ said of Lazarus, or death, as we understand it, is the doorway to the next stage of our growth – growth being the operative word – in a continuum of extended knowledge and experience. 

The Lazarus story and many others are part of the scriptural foundation of the belief that this life is but a “…dressing room…” – a place of preparation for the next stage.

I have been taught that if I have led a life edifying both to myself, and those with whom I come in contact, I will have a place in heaven.  This, in the tradition of my faith, means I will be with and recognize others who have lived similar lives.  I will exist forever in one of “…many mansions.  For if it were not so, I would have told you…” (Christ – John 14:2).

These ideas have comforted me in times of need…in times where I had nowhere to turn…no answers to the questions…nothing but child like faith that tomorrow would be a better day.  These were moments – and there have been too many to count – when faith alone carried me through the crisis.  

Crises, however, are not the best of times for evaluation and thoughtful consideration.  Crises are moments requiring whatever resources are needed simply to survive.  Faith, that unseen resource known only to he or she that believes, is what so often carries the day.  What an incredible thing it is!!

What are the things we know in life?  They begin with a built in curiosity fed with ideas and nurtured by faith.  As we believe ideas and exercise concepts they become routinely recognizable to the extent they become simply “…the way things are…” They become part of our ‘knowing,’ our base of understanding.  Fluent spoken language, simple mathematics, skill in whatever we practice, provides pathways of understanding from which belief is the starting place.  Yet without exercise of that faith, nothing is produced.

This, for me, is where it all begins.

To be continued…

- ted

An unexpected turn...

"No one is so brave that he is not

disturbed by something unexpected."

- Julius Caesar

Tucson, Arizona – The garden in the back yard is full of cacti: 
Barrel, Prickly Pear, Beaver Tail, a small Saguaro and a miniature grapefruit tree among other assorted Desert Fauna.  It represents her taste and character.  Sitting here, on Saturday evening as the sun sets, is about as lovely as one might imagine life could be. 

Monday morning – a great walk… 

It had been a bit chilly for several days in San Diego, but today was warm, sunny…the air crystal clear – a reminder why Southern California is, more consistently than not, a great place to live. 

The conversation drifted to Molly’s mother, as it had consistently done over the past year or so, and her declining health.      

Two years or so ago, this tiny wisp of a woman fell and fractured her pelvis.  She was 79 and while fractured pelvises have better long-term survival rates among the elderly than fractured hips, the prognosis can be iffy.  In her case it was very iffy.  Not, as it turned out from the pelvis, but the Clostridium Difficile (C-Diff) infection she acquired while in the hospital.  She was discharged to home and immediately had another fall.  From there it was back to the hospital...to a nursing home and back home again...horribly ill from the infection - all within a few weeks!

The outlook was grim…

The family decided to keep her at home for her final few weeks.  That was two-plus years ago.  The woman survived all of this…regaining strength and celebrating a memorable 80^th birthday with friends and family.  During this time, Molly was back and forth to Tucson with the rhythm of the ocean tide.  At first every few weeks…then every month.  Over the past 6 months with a little less frequency as Mary seemed stable…if diminishing.

In the mean time, her apparently healthy younger sister, unexpectedly emerged with lung cancer and slipped away leaving Mary as the only child.  Her brother died nearly a decade earlier of brain cancer, and Floyd her husband passed away at the age of 73 in the fall of 2003.  Through all of this, AND failing health Mary just plugged along.

The ‘temporary’ home care for a few weeks, turned into a ‘second family’ of care givers who could not have watched over her any better had they been blood relatives.

Her ability to survive…

She was a ‘future looking’ and an ‘in control’ woman all of her life.  It was a strong character that sustained her through all of this.  A military wife, it was she that moved the family from base to base and home to home.  When Floyd went to war, it was she who kept the house and family together.  She had a survival, “…whatever it takes…” instinct and hard won experience for those she loved and for her own life.  She was a smart, thoughtful, determined, yet a quiet woman.

A little work to do…

Tuesday, I had some business on the east coast.  Flying east requires early morning departure because one loses three hours before even getting on the plane.  So it was up at 4:00AM…the airport by 5:15 and off the ground by 6:30…. 

The flight to Baltimore was non-stop and comfortable.  I like flying for many reasons…mostly because, well, I just like it!  It also provides a quiet place to work without interruption.  On this flight, because it would be 5 plus hours in the air, I picked up the internet so that I could work on a project that required a little web research.

About 200 miles from Baltimore I got the email from Molly.  The content was unexpected, but in her usual plain spoken way, “ted,

Mom died this morning at 9:20 a.m. MST.  More later,  got to call my brothers, mol.”  In that moment at 35,000 feet I was stunned with the realization that Mary was gone.  I was surprised how profoundly my heart was touched.

We knew Mary’s batteries were running low and that her quality of life had degraded considerably.  Her death, however, was more sudden and shocking than either of us had thought it would be.  I cancelled the meeting in Baltimore and as soon as the plane landed I caught the next flight back to San Diego. 

The following morning, Molly was in the car and heading for Tucson to manage what would be the loss of her final parent.  As so as often happens in these life changing situations, everything got pretty simple…apparent important items in the periphery disolved and the course of events became highly focused.

Mary Ann Eberhard…

She was an interesting woman…a fighter…a lover of her children, and at times as difficult as they come…my mother-in-law.

We did not have the kind of relationship, from which mother-in-law jokes come.  We also didn’t sit around and talk about the meaning of life.  What we did was love and respect each other in our own ways.  She could be gruff with me, and would tease me…I would tell her I loved her, and get a grudging "I love you too" in return. When I arrived or left, she would put her cheek out for a kiss.  She wouldn’t say anything, just put it out there.  The kiss?  It was expected!

This was our dance…our way of finding a rhythm that worked for us.  One would have to know both of us to ‘get’ the way we interacted.  We played this game and we loved it!

You know the thing they say about ‘actions’ being louder than ‘words’…that was Mary.  She never missed a holiday or birthday without sending a card.  She would send Molly home with clothing saying, “…This doesn’t fit me anymore...” along with other things on every visit.  She would hop in the car and drive cross-country to Rochester or Boston or Philadelphia just to hear her son Michael, an accomplished opera singer – sing!

She was an artist in cross-stitching…creating dozens of pieces over her life.  They were so good, close friends and family coveted owning one of them.  She didn’t disappoint in sharing her gift with, or to them.  In addition, she was the most knowledgeable sports ‘wonk’ I ever personally knew – man or woman!

The cycle of life…

As we get older, it is inevitable that we will lose parents…friends…husbands and wives…brothers and sisters.  Death really is a part of life as surely as birth and the unrequested journey upon which we find ourselves. 

In these moments…the moments when things become real simple…when all of the things that seem so important slip into mists of meaninglessness…when clarity defines what is really important.   It is these moments we should cherish and appreciate and upon which we should meditate, because it is these moments in which we either find ourselves grateful for the relationships we cultivated with love, or regret the things we missed in the life of a loved one no longer sharing this dimension with us.

Is a departure the end? In no way…just another part of the excursion…a transition point for us all.  What do I think about it?

“See you in the not too distant future Mary.  I am grateful…”

- ted

What do I know? Not much...

Wisdom is the principal thing; therefore get wisdom: 

and with all thy getting get understanding. 

- Proverbs 4:7  Bible

“Youth is wasted on the young.” – George Bernard Shaw

I suspect the phrase is supposed to mean that it would be nice to have the energy of youth and the wisdom of age.  Hmmm…I am not sure I totally agree with that.  I mean, there is something to be said for being physically vital and peppy, but as time drifts along for me, I kind of like the slower pace and the closer approximation to the next stage of life.

Thursday morning coffee klatch…

Thursday mornings with Bill are something to look forward to.  While we are quite different, we are within a decade of each other and seem to have a certain rhythm almost every time we get together.  Actually, like a surprisingly large number of people with whom I have good resonance, he does not drink coffee.  He is a hot chocolate and muffin man…but I digress.

This week he and I were reflecting a little on the things we have learned in life and how our paths might have been much different, had we known ‘then’ what we know ‘now.’  Hindsight – an exercise in the illusion of the aging mind.  It brings about a sense of appreciation and disappointment.

Appreciation comes from realizing we are still breathing and able to make choices in our lives.  Slowing physiology also helps…one cannot so quickly act as in youth.  That simple reality, eliminates many of the things we used to do in those growing and maturing years.  This ‘natural slowing’ acts, or should act as a barrier to unbridled foolishness.  It means, if one is so lucky, a little pre-thought can prevent collateral damage on the back end.  I should be clear here…it does NOT mean we ARE necessarily any wiser…just a little slower, hopefully allowing us to BE a little wiser.

The disappointment is actually for exactly the same reasons.  What if, when we were younger, we had understood the importance of relationships…the tenderness of the human soul…the ease with which damage, in an unthinking way, can be done to another.  What if we had understood there are consequences for every action – private or public.  That wealth has little to do with the things we acquire.  That good health and a degree of mental clarity mean everything.  Regrets?  Not really, just the sense that we might have been a little less selfish and more sensitive to the things that matter.  Ah yes, to have known it then…

Friends stopped by…

As we chatted, we both paused and stared off into space…the vaults of memory normally locked with impenetrable and apparently lost passwords, opened and long forgotten experiences/people visited Bill and I at the table.  It is curious that where conscious effort often fails to discover buried places in our minds – pathways obscured by time and misplaced keys – a simple word spoken, a smell in the air, a song sung, a written word, and seemingly inaccessible doors are flung open as though they had never existed.

The table was a small two-seater, but a dozen or so people I had known and experiences with them wandered by and visited for a few moments.  I was filled with wonderment, as is the case when this happens, how easily they came; how vividly they passed by on the digital screen in my mind.  Their appearances frozen in the era from which they had been recorded.  A high school girlfriend at seventeen…an episode with a friend in Vietnam…a research project with a colleague in university…camping with youth groups…playing in a church band – a small part of the cast of characters who stopped by to touch my heart.  While Bill and I spent only a few minutes together, decades of familiarity slipped through my mind.

A little reflection…

Later, on my way home, I had the chance to revisit these folk with a little more leisure.  Regrets?  Not really.  I have been blessed – I think blessed – with the ability to walk away from things in my life that have ended and to look forward.  On the other hand, I can’t help wondering how things might have been different had I said yes to certain things and no to others.

There was a sense of gratitude for those people and circumstances that built and edified my life.  There was a sense of gratitude for having managed to escape certain consequence of choices, made in ignorance, without damage…better said…without being subjected to punishment.

Yet regardless of outward consequence, thoughts shape ideas…ideas words…words actions…actions character.  While character is the horse upon which we travel through life, it is not always consistent…it is human…with flaws and scars.

Bill and I had chatted about the things we had learned which led, as our conversations often do, to what it is we think any of it means.

The question, of course – would we have been any different?

The conversation drifted forward...
While we are both fellows of faith, he is less certain than I of an after life.  Better said, he is unsure – possibly hopeful.  For me it has moved from ‘I think’ to ‘I believe’ and finally ‘I know.’

“I think à I believe à I know,” is a bit different than “Je pense donc je suis,” (I think therefore I am – René Decartes) but it does seem to have meaning as I have found the ‘…wine aging in the barrel.’

To be continued…

- ted