Gravity, not just a good idea...it's the law

“You can break the law and pay the price,

 but bending it is not an option.”

- Anonymous

"Gravity is not just a good idea, it's the law!"

A fellow, named Gerry Mooney coined this phrase in 1977, while in Tulsa Oklahoma during the American gas crisis.  He saw an ad campaign on television that said, “The 55 mph speed limit.  It isn’t a good idea.  It’s the law!”  It inspired him to change the words “…speed limit…” to gravity.   His gravity phrase has now appeared in an uncountable number of places, mostly attributed to “… - anonymous…”

This phrase got me to thinking about other things.  For example:

          Heartbeats are not a good idea, they are the law

          Breathing is not a good idea, it is the law

          Digestion is not a good idea, it is the law

These are examples of what philosophers call ‘natural law’ which some say is the ‘order of the universe.’  They describe the unavoidable “…what is…” in opposition to the “…nice if it were…” 

Many things in our daily lives come under the natural law such as the air we breathe, the water we drink, the food we produce, but we take them for granted, because they…well, because they simply are part of the universal order to which we unconsciously adhere.  It is only when we find ourselves at the edges of the law we notice its reality, for example when we fall (gravity) or when our health fails in some way (i.e. heart, breathing or digestive problems). 

I’ve been thinking about another part of the natural law, and that is the event toward which we began traveling the day of our birth…the unavoidable end of our lives.  I’ve been thinking about how so many of us fear the loss of life, because we perceive it as theft of what we have and know, and because we have no idea what lies beyond, if anything at all.   While death is as much a part of the natural law as gravity…the beating of our heart…the breaths we take…the digestion that helps nutrient absorption…it seems to fall into a different category in our thought process.

Why is it we view death differently than other parts of the law we readily and almost unconsciously accept?  Why is it that we embrace, “From dust thou art…” and resist “…to dust thou shalt return…?” 

At birth we knew nothing, and consequently did not fear the unknown…we just slipped to the planet’s surface and began the expedition.  Why should we not simply embrace death as part of the process and celebrate its approach as much as anything else along the way?  After all, it is a pretty big event in our lives.  The argument could be made that it is as exciting (if I might use that word) a marker as the entrance we made at birth!  I mean, at birth all was unknown and the tablet was blank.  At death, no matter the length of our lives, the diary has stuff written all over it!

I’ve been thinking about this for a couple of reasons. 

The first is that this week marks the death of my younger sister Nancy.  It was February 12^th, 2012 when breath left her.  We were there at the end, and as is the parting ways with someone you love, the experience was both painful and exquisite – painful because this soul with whom we had shared so much slipped from our grasp as a dream dissolves with the coming of a new day…exquisite because being with her in life and sharing her last moments, provided a kind of closure I had not expected.  Her birth represented only a diversion of attention from me to her in our household.  Her death carried for me the experience of being in the complete life cycle of another human being.  An experience I have had with no other…and will probably never have again.

The other reason is that my last breath is approaching, in small, yet clearly discernable increments.  In the early, middle and even these latter years, I didn’t think much about my own death.  I should hasten to add, I do not give it an undue amount of thought, but I have drawn some deliberate conclusions about its impending appearance in my life.

“…in my life…” an odd way to express the end, but then again the ending of the cycle is as natural (natural law) as everything experienced from the first gasp of air in to the last expression of air out.  It is all about the ‘cycle,’ and that brings me to why I do not fear death, but in the most fascinating (to me) of ways look forward, with a kind of curiosity, to its arrival.

It is simply that cycles are just that…they end only to begin again…breathe in, breathe out – the small breaths that keep us alive moment to moment – each breath out a kind of death, as each breath in represents the next moment of life. 

I have no doubt in the BIG cycle of BREATH (breath in at birth…breath out at death) is also just that…a cycle from which the next life experience is renewed.  I have no doubt my sister’s BIG BREATH was a cycle from which she emerged into the next cycle, and I have no doubt it will be that way for me…hence the curiosity, not fear with which I look forward to the application of the natural law in my life.

It is not just that I accept by faith the ‘hope’ instilled in me that there is a better place after this life.  It is not just because I have been told that in my “…Father’s house are many mansions…” 

I embrace this, because you see, the cycle of life…the ‘CYCLE’ of life is not just a good idea…it is the law!

- ted