Mysterious Ways...

It's funny how things work in the world. It's always right as you can't take it anymore...not one more thing could possibly go wrong or you might seriously drive to the nearest Wal-Mart and then to the nearest clock tower to engage in a little Charles Whitman brand of stress release...and Then... one more thing goes wrong. Somehow though, subtly, as you are crying and raging and fighting it all the way.... a little bit of light creeps through. A moment of grace.

This is what keeps us going. I guess this is what they call Hope. It's what seems to feed something else I'm trying to understand through all this. Faith. Not the Jesus-y, singing songs and marching with signs kind or the Woo-woo "I met you in a past life" kind either. More like the Core of my own reality in this lifetime. (Not to get all woo-woo but jeeeeez...Saturn Return much?)

After one piece of bad news after another for nearly a week straight the clouds parted a bit today. Our neighbor Bill, whose wife was diagnosed with cancer the day before mom was admitted to the hospital, came over today. His wife Anita had made us dinner for Wed when we bring mom home, anticipating our exhaustion and distress at eating anything out of a box after a month of hospital fare. After less than 30 seconds of explanation about the stress of trying to get wheelchair ramps up and running before mom is discharged in less than 48 hours, there he was, his own projects sidelined, out in the yard with pre-built temporary ramps in hand. I could have cried. Or at least hugged. But he disappeared without waiting around for so much as an extended thank you. Just one of those moments when I am so grateful to live in this community, surrounded by these people. This, I think, is what people once called being neighborly. So rare is this quality nowadays that it is easily confused with divinity here at our house. "Heaven Sent" is rapidly becoming the only descriptor appropriate for the folks who come through with exactly the right thing at the right time when so many things have gone wrong.

J and I have been baffled lately by the amount of thanking that has been going on. So many thanks coming from people just for being here. As if I'd be Anywhere else. J thinks it has something to do with a widespread cultural fear of death that makes people temporarily confused when near it...and grateful to be let of the hook when someone else agrees to take over. Personally, I think it's a little simpler than that. If we do it... they don't have to examine their own motivations for not wanting to. Don't have to admit that maybe they wouldn't do it themselves...at least not for just anyone. Maybe not even for someone they really do love. It's just oo hard...and it takes so much. They are grateful for not having to think about it. Grateful for the fact that someone else will care for this person they truly do love in all the ways they would hope to be cared for themselves. In all the ways they can only pull out of themselves for one or two people in a lifetime. Most folks save this strength. They save it for a spouse or themselves or for the truly unlucky... a child. If luck is on their side, they only ever have to do it once in a lifetime. This is twice for me...and I'm only about a third through an average lifespan. The odds are not on my side.

I've been around death since I was very young. I had friends who died early. I watched lover's lose parents and held the hands of those who suffered through the loss of grandparents and friends. It was something I figured out early on I would need some sort of belief system to be able to deal with and accept. Except, well, I don't believe in Heaven or Hell and the whole god thing is still pretty up in the air. Divine Creation? Sure. But Holy Trinity or Elephant headed dieties with anger issues? Not so much... I decided I would pretty much have to come up with what was gonna work for me. It's changed over the years but the core is pretty much as follows.

1) I think that the laws of science govern the laws of spirituality. We are all energy. Energy doesn't ever die...it just changes form. I guess this what someone might call their soul.

2) There is a moment, when you watch someone leave this world, where you literally see their essence leave them. The shell is not who we are. I have no idea what the substance is...but it's not about the packaging.

3) I think you get to stay attached to the other souls you held on to in this life. You found each other for a reason. Maybe that reason becomes clear and maybe it doesn't but I believe there is some element of choice in how it all goes down once you are free of things like gravity. Don't ask me why I believe this. It's comforting. That's why they call it faith.

4) I think you might get to decide to do it all over again if you like.

5) It makes death less scary to think you'll arrive at a giant party and actually know a few folks already there. Whatever religion may hold, I'm not so into the idea of a big white guy with a Santa Claus list of lifetime achievements or a highlights reel that determine whether you were good or bad and therefore what your afterlife looks like. My world has never been so black and white in life...no reason to believe it will be when I'm not constrained by culture or other people's ideas or you know, a body, anymore. Nope, I'm sticking with the whole concept of Afterlife as a giant cocktail party, come as you are. Stay as long as you like. Leave when you're bored. Don't worry...you'll be back eventually.

Somehow when I think of it this way it all just seems... natural I guess. I suppose that's the point and purpose of all those churches I see everywhere. Faith is something I never saw much use for in my life until now, associated as it was for me with intolerance and rituals that had no meaning for me. In essence though, it is something else entirely. I don't need any religion or dogma. Just a belief in my own ideas about how the world and what lies beyond it could feasibly work. I can believe anything. I can lean on it. I can let it get me through. I can rest easy knowing that someday my spirit might get to play beer pong with my dad in his 21 year old form or have a really great, in depth conversation with my usually monosyllabic brother when he finally joins the party at 99 and proceeds to wax poetic about everything he never said before.

It's a lovely idea anyways. One that makes me laugh and cry and turn up dad's stereo. It's the Ramones until mom gets home...then classical and the Beatles. For the first time in a month today, I had a moment of peace dreaming about all the people I always wanted to meet...even the ones I thought I knew, sipping drinks with Dad and lined up against the wall waiting for his bridge partner to finally show up.

And I guess that moment...that little bit of peace...well it's the whole point.