Life as a Movie

Life for me increasingly takes on the feel of a badly-written melodrama. It’s like one of those thrillers that doesn’t seem to make any sense until the last ten minutes, when something occurs suddenly that changes the direction of the entire move and makes it all fall into place.

I believe it’s only in the last years or months or even weeks of our journey through this world that it all finally begins to make sense. Then you can begin to replay and realize what was really going on. Going back and seeing a movie is more fun the second time, once you know how it finally turned out.

The Law of Life

“Me first, Baby!” How selfish that sounds! To our Western ears, attuned as they are to such rubbish as “God first, others second, me last,” it strikes us as positively blasphemous to suggest that God is big enough to take care of himself and that He might have put us here to learn love by practicing it on ourselves before forcing it on others.

Every living thing, flora or fauna, survives by feeding, either directly or indirectly, on other living things.

That is not the law of the jungle. It is the law of life. We all feed off each other.

As much as we may detest the idea, sooner or later in our journey most of us are forced to acknowledge that life can be appallingly violent, brutal, and indifferent, and that we, too, are -- at least apparently -- capable of great selfishness on behalf of ourselves and our loved ones (often to the exclusion of the latter), or apparently so.

The Ultimate Orgasm

Every life experience ends in an orgasm, because every incident, large or small, has a typical story arc of beginning, middle, and end. In all stories there is a climax followed by a denouement -- not unlike lighting a cigarette after lovemaking or drinking a cold glass of milk after a particularly rich dessert).

Life, too, has a beginning, middle, and end. As we near the end of the third act most of us begin to experience labor pains that increase in number and intensity preceding the final orgasm of our delivery into the next world.

For many of us, death is not an enemy to be resisted at all costs to the very end. It is a friend come to deliver us from this world when it no longer affords us any pleasure.

Like a woman in labor or a couple making love, life in this world usually ends in what appears to be a series of violent, painful convulsions, but to the soul moving from one world to the next, perhaps the experience is as ecstatic as winning the World Series or hearing an exquisite violin sonata.

The Unseen World

We begin to understand that this unseen world, the real world, is somehow centered within, in opposition to the visible world, which is centered, or somehow appears to be centered, without. I think that this is the meaning from that passage from Joel in the Old Testament, which is repeated in the Book of Acts, that in the final days, young men will see visions and old men will dream dreams, or vice versa. As we mature, it’s the world within that becomes more real, and we begin to see ourselves exploring. I think this is why we appear to spend more time sleeping or daydreaming, especially in the final stages of our journey, because by now our poor old bodies are so worn out, and our senses have so dimmed, that the only thing the spirit can now perceive is the spiritual world. That becomes real. It’s one of the reasons why I’m so comfortable with watching old people, like myself, turn more and more inward from the world. I really resent all the people who try to keep me focused outwardly. You know, I’ve been focused on the world for most of my journey, and I’m really tired of the world, and I need inspiration coming from another source now, and that does appear to be within, and I spend a lot of time doing what I suppose the world would call dreaming. I’m not even sure what the process is; it just seems that I’m in tune with a world that’s far more real and lovely and peaceful. Why would I want to keep focused on a world that is noisy, chaotic, cruel, or at least appears to be all of these things? Why not focus on a world of joy? I believe we should be supporting more and more the right of old people to grow old, to turn inwards, and just begin to say goodbye to the craziness of this world, because we’re all going to leave it eventually, and once that reality is substantial, it’s very hard to be interested in this world, which basically has nothing to offer that’s going to last beyond this world, so everything here’s temporal, and the soul longs for the eternal, because we are the eternal creatures, in some mysterious way that I do not begin to grasp. Allow people to turn inward. Encourage them. Try to go there with them. Stop trying to get them to take medicines that are going to focus them back on a world where it’s so difficult for people to be happy anyway.

Into the World and Out Again

A journey through this world is essentially a movement into the world and then out of it again. The world as we perceive it is understood through the sensory organs we possess, which scientists tell us actually receive only varying lengths of electro-magnetic waves, so the world is how we perceive it as it comes through our eyes, ears, and so forth. The way we interpret it and put it together is something the brain does with the help of our DNA and our life experiences. In other words, we’re essentially a creation in process, and we are, at any given moment, exactly what the Creator wants us to be. Apparently, our lessons are learned by sojourning through the world, receiving electro-magnetic stimuli, and interpreting them according to a higher power. If we consider life a circle beginning at 6 o’clock, proceeding clockwise, and ending again at 6 o’clock, then as we mature the world comes into sharper focus and we spend more of our time and energy involved with the world as, again, we perceive it according to the stimuli coming to us, but at some point, which we might call 12 noon, the world gradually begins to dim again, and we find life becomes increasingly repetitious, and therefore increasingly disinteresting, and then something I think really fascinating happens, as the world becomes to dim ever so slowly, an unseen world begins to manifest itself and becomes more apparent as the world dims until, as an old person, we’re focused almost entirely on what’s to come, rather than on what is or what has been. This world truly becomes dim, hazy, and unreal, and the unseen world is the one that begins to become more and more substantial.

The State of the World.

All my life I have heard others and myself decry the appalling state of the world, and I have grown up hearing, and myself pontificating upon, why the world is in this terrible state, and I hear people blame political parties, their parents, religion, politics, the economy, the communists, and on and on. Everybody is always looking for the means to place the blame for the way things are on someone else’s shoulders, because, of course, they do not want to accept that responsibility themselves. And the wonderful thing is, nobody has to accept the blame; it rest squarely on the shoulders of one person, the Creator of all things. The world is in the state that the world is in because God likes it. You and I may hate it, but God thinks it’s cool. Maybe we should all just chill out, and sit back and enjoy the ride, too, because if God isn’t worried about it, why should we be?

Of course, almost everybody is convinced that God is not pleased with the state the world is in, in fact, that the cup of his wrath is about to overflow again, but those groups are, again, just trying to get themselves off the hook. If they can convince us that this crazy world is sick, sinful, and dying, then that gives them the edge on power, doesn’t it? Whereas if everything is cool, and everything is working out according to God’s perfect plan, then these people get a lot of power from just accusing others of doing what God has ordained.

This is one reason why as people get old they seem to have less interest in the world, to have less capacity to blame some group or other for the way things are. They just figure it out. This is just the way that things are supposed to be, and trying to change things is sort of like fighting against God, and who wants to do that, when you’re perhaps destined to stand before him one day real soon?

Crossing Over

I seem to be making some sort of transition into another realm over these days. I understand more and more when people say, “I can’t tell what’s real from what’s not real any longer.” In my case, of course, what most people call real is what I call unreal, but I feel as though I’m beginning to make short excursions from the unreal, which is this world, to the real, which is the world that is to come, although, of course, it’s already here. It’s all around us. We’re just not aware of it yet, or again. I’m beginning to have more and more times when all I really want to do is just go somewhere quiet, lie down, and daydream. The best place to do that is in my garden, except when there are people around whose voices intrude into that perfect reality, but when I can manage to find those short periods when this world does not intrude into my perfect pretend world, those times are becoming so vivid to me now that I realize they’re becoming more vivid than this world has ever been, which just affirms the fact that this world is not really real, it just seems to be. And I find myself wondering if death isn’t just that final crossing over, where you don’t come back, where the excursions to that next world are over, and now you’re just there. Isn’t that going to be wonderful?

The Order of Things

I’ve been watching the old TV series “Upstairs, Downstairs,” and also “The Duchess of Duke Street,” both of which deal with the class system as it existed in England up until World War I and the collapse of this system as a consequence of the war. I’ve been intrigued because both series are so well written and well produced, and the acting is superb, but they also deal with a subject I enjoy wrestling with -- the basic order of things throughout the world, throughout nature. In my garden I watch the birds and I see a very clear pecking order. If anyone steps out of line, he is quickly brought back into line by the rest. It was fascinating to see in these series that whatever class you were in, life operated the same way. The people downstairs, the servants, had a pecking order, with the butler at the top and then the chief cook, Mrs. Bridges, and on down the line, with footmen, and ladies maids, and scullery maids and, finally, the lowest of the low – the poor boy or girl who everybody could pick on.

As this system breaks down, you see the ultimate dilemma of the democracies. You take away one class system, but another one is going to take its place, because that is the natural order of things. There will always be rulers, whether they are supposedly democratically elected, or whether they inherit their power. The bottom line is that there’s somebody above all of us who is setting all this up and deciding who’s what, and we’re all going to learn the same lessons before we’re done with our journey, whether we’re rich or poor, strong or weak.

The garden reminds me again that it is this basic order of things that brings us what degree of security we do manage to feel in a world that appears to be so chaotic. The fact is, there’s great order behind the chaos, and you only have to spend some time in a garden before you become aware of the order that is here and the power that is being exerted to hold all of this together, and how magnificent it is, just totally beyond our understanding. Mine are the babblings of a child, because that’s all I’m capable of doing as I look around me and am overwhelmed by this beauty. I also feel my frustration at the imperfection of it all, as it appears to us, the constant loss that we experience, the frustration of watching plans that we have made for so long crumble before our eyes, until we understand that this is just all part of growing up, and we begin to realize how the world really is and not just how we’re told it is.

I just love the story of the little boy and the emperor’s new clothes. There I am. There’s Johnny. All my life, I’ve stood at the feet of this huge crowd and everybody has been cheering and getting so excited about something that I just don’t see, and what I do see, I’m convinced others must see also, and so there I have been all my life saying, “What is the matter with you people? Don’t you see the way it really is?” And of course they don’t, because it’s not their time yet, and the few who do are frightened, because they thought that they were the crazy ones. It’s all just part of the great play, isn’t it, so back to the garden, where my mind is free to explore a whole range of subjects and be open to whatever insights the gods choose to give me this day, and then according to their whim cause me to forget the next day. Back to the present moment, with the blue sky, the mountains all around me, palm trees, the fragrance of the jasmine in bloom, the roses, and the herbs, the coming and going of the birds, and the music of the water in the fountains.

Back to the Garden

What a true phenomenon a garden is. The more time I spend in my garden, the more I realize how important it is to me in my waning days in my little cocoon here. A garden has so much of what nurtures us -- throughout out lives, but especially at the very beginning, and again, of course, at the very end. A garden is a place of such tranquility, of peace, of harmony, of color, and of gentle motion, which can change very quickly into violent motion, but it’s always moving. It’s truly alive, breathing, growing. It’s a place that attracts life. When I think about what this little piece of land was like when I bought my place -- just barren rock, ground-up gravel 4 inches deep, so that nothing could grow out of it. There was a row of oleanders that were parched and hedged and brittle and looked like store-bought artificial plants. Now I look around and I’m just overwhelmed with the change in just a couple of years. Thanks to my gardener, there is such a variety of colors and textures and fragrances, and collectively they draw bees and butterflies and hummingbirds, and the minute that I put up some bird feeders, they all flock, because there are water fountains and food and shelter, and such a sense of peace and tranquility. This is extremely attractive to us during those times of our lives when that is what we require, just peace and quiet, which I know to many sounds like death, but to those of us who are truly alive, in the spirit, even as our bodies decay and fall apart around us, we are the ones who are truly alive, I think, truly aware with senses that are now not only mature, but also know how to put all this data together in ways that make sense, because five or six or seven or eight decades of living fills in a lot of pieces of the puzzle. The longer you’re here, the more you think that you see more and more clearly what’s going on and how it really all works. It just goes to show that all the time we’re here we’re basically children, ever learning, and ever thinking that we’ve finally arrived at the last great piece of learning. But what a nice classroom it is today to learn in, and how thankful I am that if I have to still be here, these are moments that reassure me of the glory that is to come and the fact that I can hang on if I have to, because that great higher power somehow always manages to give the grace to get through it all. And a beautiful garden is part of that grace.

The Happiest Man Alive?

As much as I would like to be out of this world for good, never to return, I seem to be happier here in a place that I don’t want to be, than the people who want to be here, or so they think. People don’t seem really happy to me at all, and yet they’re terrified of leaving, and I can’t wait to get the heck out of here, and yet, on a day-to-day, minute-by-minute basis, I’m probably the happiest person on the planet

What’s So Funny?

I think the reason why so many people are in institutions today, whether jails or medical facilities, and after all, a jail’s a jail, is because some of them are having way too much fun. They spend an awful lot of time laughing and smiling about things that other people don’t see. “What’s goin’ on with that guy? He’s always laughin’ and smiling.’ What’s he got to be so happy about?” And so we just lock them up, so we won’t be reminded of how miserable we all are. One of those delightful ironies of life, don’t you think?

Questions of Character

Sometimes I’m amused by that expression, “That person has no character.” I guess what we mean is, the character they have, we don’t like. The fact is that everybody has character, because everybody is a character in the play of life.

Something Wonderful is Coming

I’m up at Whitewater and it’s a wonderful day. The mountains and the hills are gorgeous, and it’s actually cold up here. The wind is coming right off of the snow, and so I’m the first person to breathe this wonderful cold, clean air. I’ve been thinking about how all around us are these pictures of heaven, images of glory, and even what I’m seeing with my eyes is no more real than a movie -- just images and not the real thing -- the fact that they are images of something that is real causes my heart to leap. Yeah, something wonderful is coming, and it’s going to be far more glorious than our human eyes could ever take in, but in the meantime this is a very nice reminder indeed.

Knowing So Much

One of the really frustrating things about growing older is that you end up knowing so much. This can be misunderstood, because there isn’t a single point in our journey through life when we are not convinced that we know more than anybody else. That’s just part of being human. However, it is frustrating when you’re the oldest person around and, although you don’t know much, you sure know more than the kids all around who are convinced they have everything figured out.

Thou Shalt Not

Isn’t human nature just hilarious? I used to wonder why the world seemed to be built upon the principle of “thou shalt not,” why everything we really enjoy is forbidden us, but gradually over time it became clear that like everything else in this world it sort of goes back to the almighty dollar. If you tell people they can’t have something that they really want, they will pay almost anything to be able to get it.

Life, an Essentially Solitary Journey

More and more I am impressed with the fact that although there are six billion plus people on the planet, we’re all very lonely. Now that I’m retired and I’ve got plenty of time, and I’ve got a few years behind me, and therefore a few insights to interpret what I am seeing, I look around and see a world of desperately lonely people. For most of our journey we are trying so hard to please everybody, to be the people that we’re supposed to be, instead of the people that we just are. Working that hard means you really aren’t focused much on others. It’s one of the ultimate ironies of life, of course, because most of us are surrounded and overwhelmed by people from the time we enter the world, and yet, we don’t really connect very often. We’re fortunate if there is one other person at any given moment that we would really enjoy being with.

Most of the time, we’re compromising, aren’t we? We’re putting up with this frustration or that irritating habit that somebody has, or we’re going to a movie with someone, and it’s not really the movie that we want to see, but it’s the movie we’re going to because they want to see it. There isn’t really a lot of perfect meshing with other people, and I can see more everyday that this is due to the fact that God has created each one of us to be unique. There’s nobody out there who’s just like you are, likes just exactly the foods that you do, and the music and the movies that you do, and has the same occupation, things that you do with your time, your skills, so we’re alone, even when you’re with others.

Looking back now, to me the scary thing about being in relationships or being married, one of those legal commitment that means, “Yeah, we’re legally bound to this one,” is that it doesn’t take very long to see how different we all really are and that there really isn’t all that much time after the honeymoon is over that we really want to spend with this other person. We’re lonely, but we’re not that lonely, and so a lot of us, as time goes on, find that we’re spending more and more time by ourselves because the only other person that is just exactly like I am – is me! A lot of us find that in the long run, in this journey, the only really satisfying lifelong companion we have is our self.

The thing that makes the end of our journey so wonderful is the discovery, after a lifetime, that we’re going to be OK as long as we’ve got our self. If you are one of those individuals who’s blessed to be pretty much alone in the world at the end of your journey, it can be wonderful to know that you’re not going to have to spend most of the time that you have left in this world hanging around people that you may love but you really don’t like very much, and you really don’t like very much of their company, but for one reason or another, you’re stuck with it. So for those of you who are surrounded by people and enjoy kids and grandkids and work and lots of people around you all the time, don’t feel sorry for those of us who don’t. Most of us really enjoy being alone, without being besieged by all of those people that we have to keep pleasing.

Glimpses of Glory

I do believe now that all through our lives we are sent these little glimpses, short visions of what is to come in the next world, and we don’t recognize them because we think that they are just especially nice times that we had, like that one Christmas when everybody got along, and there seemed to be this glow over the whole weekend, and Grandma’s fudge was still just as fantastic as ever, it was a glimpse of glory, a time that was so special, and everybody remembered it and was thankful for it for a long time. You know, it can be a sunset, a garden on a particular day, or a symphony that just lifts your soul until you think that you may expire on the spot. Whatever it is, we get these glimpses, I think, to encourage us, to keep us going through the hard times, and we’re all thankful for them and wish there were more of them. Put them all together as best as you can over a lifetime, and you begin to see that they are all part of a larger picture. The picture is of glory, heaven, paradise, Shangri-La. The thing about a glimpse is that it happens so quickly that sometimes we’re not even sure we actually saw it once it’s passed, and we begin to doubt if the experience really could have been as fantastic as we remember it. Then in time something happens and we realize, “Oh, yeah, put together with those other special times, it was that special.” Sometimes a glimpse, even just a glimpse, is enough if the glory is great enough.

Heart and Soul

Heart and soul: Heart is the feeling, and soul is the body that gives the feeling form.

STDs

Sexually transmitted diseases should be, I think, among our most honored diseases. After all, they are the only diseases that we get while intentionally having fun.

Different Perceptions

Occasionally when I’m singing a song along with the player piano, I’m just astonished at how good a singer I am. I can hear and feel the force of God singing through me, but every so often I get a chance to hear how I sound to the world, not to God and me, and I’m always appalled at how badly I can sound, especially when I’m trying to record on an inferior instrument. I think that’s the way it is in this world. Each of us experiences the world through his own filtering system, and through what God is doing in us, and we don’t understand why the world reacts the way it does to us. For example, “God, why was he offended by what I said? I meant it as a compliment.” “Why didn’t my boss like this proposal? It’s great. Why can’t they see it?”

There’s that “why” question again, and the answer to those kinds of questions usually is that we don’t perceive the world the way others do. No two of us perceives or experiences the world exactly the same, which is why there’s so much conflict in the world. Very few people are able to step outside their own experiences and into the lives of others and understand why they’re behaving and responding the way they are. That’s a rare gift, and even to those who have it, I don’t think it becomes fully formed until near the end of the journey.

In the classroom, I would have two kids sit on opposite sides of a penny and describe to the class what they were seeing. It was great to see that little light go one with some of the kids. “Oh, yeah. They’re both looking at the same penny, but they’re seeing different sides of it. Duh!” If we could only see the other side, what other people are seeing.

When in Rome

When in Rome, speak Italian, because they don’t speak Latin there no more.

Imagination

Imagination is the tool with which we fashion our dreams.

Words

A word often takes on a connotation, either positive or negative, that is often the opposite of its normal meaning, the meaning that most of us ascribe to it, or that’s in the dictionary. For example, my dad used to tell a wonderful story to me and my brother when we were quite small, and looking back, I’m seeing that most of his stories, which were extremely funny at the time we heard them, as time went on came to have some profound truth behind them. A kid came in from playing outside and his hands were really filthy. His mom admonished him and said, “How could you come into the house with hands that dirty?” The kid looked at his hand with great wonder and said, “But Mom, it’s clean dirt.” And my brother and I would squeal with laughter at how funny that was. I’m not quite sure even now why it was funny, except that we got the meaning of “clean” being the opposite of “dirty.” What a wonderful, profound story that really is, because where did dirt come to have this negative meaning of filth and whatever? Dirt is among the cleanest substances on the planet, or at least it was until we got a hold of it. Good dirt is just teeming with life and it smells good and it feels good, and why in the world would we take something as wonderful as dirt and give it this other meaning?

Why?

From the time we’re small we want to know why things happen the way they do. Why do the stars go away during the day? Why did my puppy have to die? As we get older, we just seem to ask more and more “why” questions. It’s just part of our nature. As parents, teachers, and preachers, we do our best to answers people’s questions about why things happen the way they do. I don’t ask “why” questions anymore because I’ve come to the conclusion that there’s really only one answer to every “why” question you could ask. It comes down to what a tired mother says when her kid won’t stop asking questions and when they’re not satisfied with the answers: “Honey, that’s just the way it is.” Isn’t that really the ultimate answer to every question? And you could say, “It’s God’s will. It’s the way he put things together.” The answer is the same. There really is no answer. That’s just the way it is.

I think part of getting older is recognizing that a lifetime of searching still leaves us with unanswered questions, and with getting older comes the kind of wisdom that tells you that maybe it’s better to just accept things they way they are instead of asking why and trying to figure out how to could change them. Ultimately, I guess, nothing was meant to be changed. It was meant to be the way it is. The problem is that we are finite creatures and are constantly asking questions of the infinite with the puny computers we call brains. We just don’t have the capacity to really take in the infinite, do we?

Some may say, “That’s too simplistic an answer. Some questions can be answered. For instance, why did my daughter die? Because that guy was driving drunk when he hit her.” There seem to be events where an effect logically follows a cause, but then there are still these other questions. Why is it then that so many people who aren’t drunk are in accidents and end up hurting or killing somebody totally unintentionally? It happened. Or why is that so many people who drive drunk never have accidents and never get tickets? Inevitably you have to keep asking a “why” question until exhaustion sets in and you say, “Well, I guess that’s just the way it is.”

The Will

Will and desire. God’s will or our will. My will or your will. What the heck do we mean by “will,” anyway? What is it that you want to do, and how much of what we do are we compelled to do, because life has arranged itself that way, and that’s all we can do, and we even find ourselves saying, “I have no choice.” There’s always some well-meaning person who says, “Of course you have a choice. You have will. You can choose to do right or wrong.” Not true. I think we need to reorder our thinking or maybe change our perspective.

Think about the way things happen. Think about your own life and the way you are today, and ask yourself, honestly, is that the life you chose? Is this the way you would like it to be? There might be one or two who say, “Oh, I have the perfect life.” I suspect that they’re maybe lying or blind or especially blessed. Take the time to distance yourself from the present and take yourself back to your earliest memories. When was the first time that you were aware of the fact that you had to do something that you didn’t want to do? Why did you do it if you didn’t want to? Do we really have what is called “free will”?

Let’s assume for a moment that we do have free will and we do make our own choices. That means that we carry around an appalling amount of fear and guilt, because if you are making the choice, then you are responsible and will be held accountable for your choices, good or bad. If, on the other hand, we are just vessels of some greater power like the hose is the vessel for the water, then we are just passive vessels, created perhaps to observe this life we’re living. It’s like riding a raft down life’s river, where we have no control over the raft or the river but can enjoy the scenery and the events that occur during this adventure. If we are just passive vessels and we are not making the decisions, then we have nothing to fear or feel guilty about. Wow! You know, there’s a part of us that likes to think that we’re in control. It’s kind of scary to think that we’re not. But when you really look at it coolly, objectively, logically, it’s the best of all worlds not to be in control.

If it’s God’s will and God’s plan, and we don’t have any say over even a single split second of our entire life, then there is no reason to have any fear or any guilt. We can just lie back and enjoy the ride. How many of us really have choice? How often are we asked by God or anyone else what we really want? Do you enjoy living in a world where you are assaulted by provocative sexual images almost every moment of the day and yet are denied access to any really enjoyable physical intimacy? Oh now and then, maybe, at the beginning of the relationship, on the first date, it’s kind of exciting, but how many of us can honestly say that passion endures? Hey, where does passion come from anyway? Where does desire come from? And are they really any different from will? It’s very clear to me that even my desires come from some other source, within, that’s for sure, but more and more I’m aware that I’m told when to eat because I get hungry. I’m told when to play or to rest because I have the desire to do that. And what about those days when we have no desire to do anything? We can’t even get up out of bed. Have you ever tried to stay in bed for like a week? Try it sometimes, friends. Our will and desire come from within but they are not ours, and we are told what to do by our desires.

We’re tempted to say, “I can will myself to choose not to follow those desires. I have that choice.” Granted, there are times when it feels as though we want to do something but we do it another way or not at all, but if we really examine again, where is that will coming from to turn away from desire? Sooner or later I think we have to accept the fact that we are passive vessels, and that there is nothing wrong with that. That’s the way it’s been set up by the powers that be, and acceptance of that is really acceptance of ourselves, because most of the time, we’re trying to change who we are because we’ve been told that some things about us really aren’t very nice and we just need to work on those. Like Katherine Hepburn in The African Queen, “Nature, Mr. Allnut, is what we’re been put on this earth to rise above.” Well, maybe not. Maybe nature is just the natural way and we do what we do because that is our nature and that is, after all, God’s will. How nice to be able to accept oneself. You know what that amounts to. Loving one’s self. Acceptance. How many times are we torn between rejection of others or ourselves? Trying to change others or ourselves is ultimately an exercise in futility. Eventually we come to realize that everything is exactly as it’s supposed to be. Nobody’s really bad or good, right or wrong. This is how the play was written. Play your part and enjoy it or don’t enjoy it. You’ll be given the desire to do one or the other.

The Center of the Circle

Joseph Campbell, in the course of his interviews with Bill Moyers, said something that really intrigued me. He talked about the circle, which is common in every culture, ancient or modern, and it has various metaphysical and spiritual meanings. For example, the Plains Indians, at any time, could make a 360 degree turn and see that they were at the center of a circle, because the horizon, when it’s unbroken, is a circle, and since you’re equidistant from each part of the perimeter, you are at the center of your own circle. It occurred to me again that we’re all at the center of our own circle, and the incredible thing about creation is that we’re at the center and the hero of our own story. Most of us just don’t realize it. Maybe that’s one of the things that we get to do in eternity -- We get to tell our own stories.

Legalism

Laws are supposed to exist as the servants of human kind, and not the other way around. When we live by the letter of the law rather than the spirit, we force people to become the servants of the law. Jesus said, “The letter of the law brings death. The spirit of the law brings life.” Basically he was condemning the Pharisees. They were teachers of the law -- that’s what a Pharisee was -- but instead of teaching people how to use the law to free them from bondage and slavery, the Pharisees used the law to enslave, and the people were now under bondage to the law. That is a problem that we all face all through our lives, and as children, as the New Testament makes clear, we need the law, we need rules, we need teachers and parents and pastors and political leaders. All these people help keep order in a disorderly world, but the problem is that the law, which was meant to be a servant to human kind, is always in danger of becoming a despot when it is misused by people who do not understand that the law is not there for law and order. It is there to bring peace and harmony in a troubled world.

Pain in This World

I’m increasingly fascinated by the fact that for most of our lives we seem to associate pain with having done something wrong. It’s punishment, we feel, because we made a bad decision or we went against some rule or principle. It’s amazing how many of us, in dealing with our own lives or the lives of others, like Job’s friends, are sure that if there’s pain in our life that we must have done something wrong, that we’re being punished, because God is just and he would not punish people for no reason. Well, you know, that’s an interesting concept that we can talk about later, but the point is, we all seem to associate pain with punishment. The fact is that pain is just part of the journey. We seem to understand the concept of growing pains. Teething, for example, is a painful process. We haven’t done anything wrong. It’s just part of being alive. When we reach the age of five, our baby teeth start to come out and the new ones come in, and we’re in pain, but that’s just part of our growth. I’ve come to the conclusion that all pain is just part of the journey, and I know people feel this just can’t be so, because they know they’ve made bad choices. They made mistakes, and therefore it was painful. But again, from a certain perspective, there’s no such thing as a mistake. There’s no such thing as a bad choice, because we didn’t make those choices to begin with, so the pain is just a consequence of being alive, not a consequence of a bad choice.

"Why do you want to leave?"

There have been times recently when I have found myself saying to certain people, “God, I can’t wait to get out of here.” Most of them really don’t know what to do with that statement, and even if they don’t come right out and ask, you can see that they’re thinking, “Why would you want to leave?” Well, there are a number of reasons, but let’s start with the fact that it’s boring here. After you have reached a certain age, you realize that there is truly nothing new under the sun. That which has been will be again. That which is now has already been. You begin to feel as though you’ve seen every movie that comes out at least half a dozen times in other versions, and that every place you visit looks and feels just like home. People seem appallingly the same no matter where you go, no matter what their culture. You realize that these are human beings and they’ve got arms and legs and noses and ears and basically the same needs, the same instincts, and therefore cultures are basically the same regardless of their outward trappings. In addition, we’re living in a day and age when there are so many of us that wherever you go it’s just chaos and frustration. When you get to a certain age, trying to deal with the languages, currencies, and customs and having to worry about whether you’re going to unintentionally offend someone in this other culture, becomes very burdensome, so the whole thing becomes very boring.

Another reason, perhaps the most important in the long run, is that you reach a point eventually in your journey when you are tired of having to rein yourself in. You are tired of not permitting yourself to have certain feelings or to act upon them. You get tired of pretending to be somebody else. This can manifest in little ways, as when you have to say, “Oh yes, Mrs. So and So, I just love your angel food cake. Thanks for bringing over another one that you baked all by yourself.” I hate angel food cake. I’d like to be able to say -- and one of the reasons I have so few friends today is that I do say -- “Thank you, Mrs. So and So, but you know, I’ve never cared much for angel food cake. It’s no fault of yours, and I’m sure it’s delicious, but I would really appreciate it if you didn’t bring them over any more, because all I do is either give them away or dump them in the garbage.” You finally realize that all of life is having to please other people, go by other’s rules, try not to offend peoples’ sense of morality or ethics or political orthodoxy. It dawns on you that as long as you’re going to be in this world, you’re going to have to be nice to people. You must yield to their sense of right and wrong. You must compromise every day that you’re here. And you begin to picture heaven more and more as a place where you don’t have to do that. You can be who God made you to be. You can be anything, and everybody loves it. It’s a place where you can’t offend or be offended, a place where there is no loss. Things don’t burn down, people don’t die. Relationships don’t fall apart. Businesses don’t disintegrate. Vineyards don’t get frostbitten and crops killed by the locusts. Imagine, folks, a place that has everything that you love about this world, and nothing that you hate about it, where there are no irritations or disharmony or strife or sickness or war or poverty or famine -- none of those things that make life so interesting here that we have to report on them ad infinitum. Of course, this is a world of disasters, natural and manmade, because it’s a soap opera, and for the eight decades we have to be here, it would be boring if not for all this melodrama, but you do get to the point, friends, where you get bored anyway. You get bored by violence, noise, rudeness, greed, and falsehood. You just want to go to a place where everything is nice, and so you find yourself saying, more and more, “Oh God, I can’t wait to get out of this place.” Now, you might think, “Well, if you feel that way, then spare us your misery and just kill yourself.” Well, friends, you’d be surprised how many times I’ve already tried that. Believe me, I am here to say, by experience, that if it’s not your time to leave, you ain’t gonna get out of here. If you think that we have choice about our exit time, you’re very mistaken. The Almighty often uses our own hands to remove us from this place, but it’s still God’s decision, not yours or mine. There are, of course, many other reasons why people wish they weren’t here. We can go into those another time.