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          Sure, Jack London would laugh at me when I call 11 degrees below brutal, but he never went through it at 80 mph on a snowmobile.  Dog sleds, pu-leez!  Why, it was so cold that my son Jeff had frosted eyebrows that made him look like Keith Richards pulling up from an ounce of cocaine lines on a glass table.  I myself just looked old and sure as heck felt it after digging both sleds out from 2.5 feet of pure powder ‘round back of the cabin.  Ah, tales of the Great North.
 
          But such adventures lead to good conversations at night.  The beer bottles open and effervesce, and the Scrabble board lays scattered with tiles that only slightly impinge the conversation.  Is “Bro” now a real word?  Does God exist?  Is evil taking over the world?  What IS evil?  Such lines of thought seldom lead to anything, let alone a national coup, but sometimes they can be personally clarifying. 
 
          So it was one dark and snowy night when Jeff popped this observation from out of the blue (and white): “Political reformers seek equity in this world, but equity is only meant for the afterlife.  In this life, it is almost always unfair and unworkable.” 
 
          Pretty good, I would say, and it sure sent my wheels to spinning.  Almost immediately, the Gospel story of the Vineyard pickers came to mind (Mathew, 20:1-16).  Here, Jesus tells of a vintner who hires laborers to pick his grapes.  The first are hired in the morning for a fair wage; another group is hired at noon, then another mid-afternoon, then another only a few hours before dark.  When the day is done, the vintner first pays those who had come last with the same salary agreed upon by the first.  The first then expect a bonus, but instead the vintner gives everyone the same salary as the last.  The first then begin to grumble: we have worked many hours more, but you have paid us the same!  To this, the vintner replies (paraphrase), “Did you not agree upon a fair wage?  It is my money and I can spend it as I wish.  If I want to give as much to the first as the last, that is my right.”
 
          Now, my parents loved to argue about things, but on this they agreed: the vintner was unfair.  What the heck was Jesus talking about?  Alas, it seemed that this Jesus fellow was a little bit crazy and his solutions to the world unworkable.
 
          They were right as far as this world goes, and I agreed with them for years until I found that the Gospels, and the Bible in general, had many layers of meaning that must be probed.  In this, the tale of the vintner, one very clear analogy has been made by the scholars: Jesus was talking about the Jews and the gentiles, and how his message, and his promise, would spread and be kept.  The Jews had been the Chosen Ones for nearly 2, 000 years up to this point, and the promises of God for a New Jerusalem were clearly meant for them alone, or so many thought.  But no: instead, they were the preparatory race, as some race had to be; and the New Jerusalem, in the end, had been meant for all.  So, if the Romans turned to Christ in a single generation, they, too, would earn eternal paradise just as the Jews would; and if the Jews refused the new deal, they would be cast among the lost along with the remaining gentiles.  Thus, the parable ends appropriately, “So the last will be first, and the first will be last.” 
 
          Even as God can spread his “wealth” any way he chooses, my parents were right: for this world, this way is fundamentally unfair.  Those who work all day should get more than those who work only a few hours.  If not, no one would work all day, and, if things went far enough, no one would work at all.  This is how we are.  The world is a place of limitations and struggle, and without fairness – that is, getting paid for what and how much is done – society would collapse, just as the natural world itself would collapse.  If, for instance, only one wolf hunts, would he give his food to others?  How fast would that Darwinian nightmare last?
 
          But the world of God, the world of the spirit, is not a world of struggle.  The resources are unlimited, and all could be entitled to its riches without depleting from others.  So what if one is a sinner all his life, then repents in his last years?  What would that take from the life-long saint?  Heaven would still run just fine, and all would have their needs fulfilled.  So it is that we find in the Beatitudes (Mat, 5: 1-12) that the “Meek shall inherit the earth.”  The struggle for heaven is not the same as the struggle in this life for pre-eminence or even survival.  He who follows a humble life here is less likely to become rich and powerful, but more likely to ascend to heaven, as he has the humility to accept that he is not at the center of the world –that is, that there is something greater than himself that he must worship even as a slave might worship his master.
 
          So, be humble and poor, right?  Do not chase after the things of this world, right?  But how would that bring equity – that is, equality of goods and cash – to anyone else?  It would not.  It is not supposed to.  The goals of the earth-bound man are very different from those of the heavenly-bound.  So what, then, of enforced equity in THIS world? 
 
          Back to the vineyard, it is obvious that people would rebel against enforced equity.  It is unfair, right from the start, no one would work anymore, and everyone would be miserable and begin practicing war all over again.  The philosophers of materialism, crystallized in Marxism, tell us that the selfish ways of humans would change if things were made equitable, and we would all work as hard as we could for the good of everyone.  But how is that thinking to come about?  Mustn’t we first have leaders to lead us to this point?  And wouldn’t they, at first, have to use violence to “convince” us to be more equitable?  All the communist dictators come to mind.  Just as telling, how would these leaders find their own equitable core if no one is there to “re-educate” them?  We know, as George Orwell wrote in Animal Farm, that everyone would be equal in all things, alright, except that some would be more equal than others.  The leaders, then, would have to start out as perfect saints.  Even if that were possible, even saints can’t control the selfish desires of this world.  Some, it turns out, are even crucified for even trying. 
 
          We are involved in a push towards world equity today which is not only impossible, but would only lead to more violence and oppression by the “more equal” pigs.  That’s the way it is in this world, which, we read in the good book, belongs to the dark prince, at least for now.  The materialists have taken the goal of heaven and tried to apply it in its full form to this world.  As my parents rightly said, this is unfair, as anyone who thinks clearly comes to know sooner rather than later.  Again and again we must remember that Free Will is the greatest gift, and the only tool to salvation that we can control that can give us both heaven and a good life in this temporal world.  Good works are based on our free decision to give, to help, and to console; the rest that is needed for a good life, and an eternal one, rests on grace that is given from God, also freely, whether you come to faith early or late. 
 
          ‘I came to light the world on fire, to turn it upside down’ (paraphrase) proclaimed Jesus, and that is exactly what he did.  To follow him is to deny the world; the Buddha said much the same: give up all desires and attachments to obtain Nirvana, just as Muhammed told us to abandon our will for God’s.  One does not gain paradise by distributing others’ goods, nor does one gain paradise by being on the receiving end.  It is the will away from the things and ways of this world that help bring redemption.  One cannot relieve heroin addiction by equitably distributing heroin, but rather, by not having it altogether.   Materialism, then, not religion, is more likely to become the opiate of the masses.  How odd that the great solution of today to all of life’s problems is to deny the wisdom of the great spiritual leaders, while having us think that we are following that same wisdom.
 
 
          

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          Old people will remember the ‘60’s era TV series, “The Flying Nun,” with Sally Fields, a real cutey for adolescents such as myself at the time.  The series left me with two impressions: one, how cool would it be to fly, even if it took a winged nun’s hat to do it; and two, how sad that this innocent young thing would never succumb to the caresses of some young hopeful like me.   I have since moved on from Sally Fields, leaving her to the memory of Burt Reynolds, but never did I think then that a nun could actually fly, hat or no.  Maybe Jesus could – of course he could if he wanted to – but not the rest of us mere mortals. 
 
            But we don’t always grow in one direction.  Usually, time disabuses us of miracles, leaving us to the unkind mercies of a world whose only certainties are death and taxes.   However, this attitude on miracles, or the scientifically impossible, has, with the help of prolific research, left me altogether.  Impossible things – we often call them the supernatural – happen all the time.  Cancer is cured instantly, people can read minds and affect physical reality through thought, and, most importantly for our purposes here, people can and have often flown.  
 
          Such says the title of a great book I am reading, The Man Who Could Fly, by Michael Grosso.  No, Grosso does not work for the Vatican, and I am not sure he is even religious.  Rather, he is a philosophy professor who has done extensive work on the paranormal and quantum physics, and has proven to me through his books that mind exists apart from physical reality.  This has not been accomplished through the repetition of physical experiments with certain results, as is required for scientific proof, as the supernatural is, as the name says, beyond the common notions of the natural.  Instead, in this book he has relied on witnesses to the flying antics and miracles of St Joseph of Copertino, such an enormous quantity and quality of witnesses that one simply looks silly and obstructionist denying the truth that at least something happened to and around the saint, something that cannot be explained by the standard scientific methods. 
 
          Flying.  This was not the only wonder he accomplished, but it was done so often and is such an astounding feat that it is for this that St Joseph is remembered.  In fact, as his witnesses attest, he flew every time he - a priest - said mass, or saw a picture of the Virgin, or anyone hinted at anything related to heaven.   He flew to the tops of trees and remained perched on delicate branches for large portions of an hour, or flew several hundred yards over the heads of crowds, or hundreds of feet to the top of a cathedral where a portrait of Mary was kept; he flew or levitated while lifting the communion wafers for blessing in front of full congregations; and, most importantly from our view of “proof,” he flew during the two times he was forced to appear before the Inquisition.
 
          Joseph was born in the first years of the 1600’s, which are counted among the most difficult years for anyone displaying extraordinary abilities.  This century, more than any other in Christian history, was the “season of the witch,” in which America recorded the infamous Salem Witch trials.  It was the culminating century of the counter- reformation, when the Catholic Church was still reeling from the schism created by Martin Luther a century earlier, which effectively ended Christendom.  It is also noted as the century when the true modernisms of scientific materialism and capitalism took hold.  It was then that demons were seen everywhere, even in a poor, slightly addled priest who had the misfortune of flying every time he entered ecstatic union with God. 
 
        Thus, through the terror and perhaps envy of his superiors, Joseph was subjected to two intense and possibly consequential meetings with the relentless Catholic inquisitors.   There, he humbly admitted to his flights and other miracles, while also, in his peasant humility, stated beyond guile that he wished the heck that such events never happened to him.  People gawked and flooded to his masses or to wherever the Vatican unsuccessfully tried to hide him, leaving him less time to contemplate the creator.  And as he confessed and spoke before his inquisitors, he often flew, much to their horror. 
 
          What is important about this is that the clerks of the Inquisition took copious and careful notes of everything, serving as primitive camcorders.  Nothing was too small to note so that the scourge of Satan could be washed from the holy lands of the Church.  And there they were and are to see for all in stark black and white – full attestations that Joseph flew, not once, but hundreds if not thousands of times. 
 
           I have read physicists who proclaim that not only flight, but any levitation is impossible, and from their view of physics, they are right.  What, we would have to ask, would happen to the object as the earth turned?  How would other physical things be affected by this puncture in natural law? 
 
          Interestingly, it was often reported with both saints and the demonically possessed (so said) who levitated that the very clothes on them did not move with gravity.  Possessed women were reported to flip upside down while there dresses remained hanging around their ankles.  With Joseph, people who were touched by him when he flew or levitated were raised above with him with no effort applied.  The single touch of a finger was all that was necessary to raise a fully grown man.  Obviously, Joseph and others had created –and still create – spaces around them that answered to a different drummer. 
 
          There is no concrete scientific reason yet created for these phenomena, although quantum physics might someday fill this vacuum with the ongoing research into this seemingly magical realm, but of the reality of these ‘miracles’ I have no doubt.  The days of doubting for me are long-gone.  However, Grosso did point out something that still bothers me when expounded on the astounding phenomena often associated with near-death experiences (NDEs).   Aside from proofs of out –of-body experiences during this time, where mind is shown to exist outside the brain (a huge boost to the idea of an afterlife), the NDE subject often is met by a personal super-being who radiates love and light, and whose presence often presages a full Life Review.  Here, he is shown, “It’s a Wonderful Life” style, how important to others his actions on earth have been.  However, here is also where he is held up to the mirror of perfect divine love, where he is relentlessly found to be wanting.  Here, the subject experiences great pain and remorse. 
 
         In this I also believe, and in this I am most afraid.  We might fly or experience miracle healings or win the lottery jackpot, but all of this passes.  I am not sure, however, that the remorse for our moral failings ever does.  Yes, there is infinite divine love, but can we ever find our way to it?  According to Christian doctrine in general, we cannot without faith in Christ.  But what of this faith?  Is that perfected within us in the light after our death?  Or do we have to be saints here on earth first to find eternal bliss?  That is, do we, too, have to raise above the laws of physics, as St Joseph did, to raise above our mortal failings? 
 
          The East calls sin Karma, but by any other name, it weighs us down.  Gravity, then, is not only a physical law, but a projection of Original Sin.  Under such a view, it should be the natural laws that are seen as ephemeral and fantastical, not the supernatural abilities, which only reflect the possibilities of the greater, eternal world.  The miracle deniers – and by this I mean all those who simply refuse to believe that anything supernatural can take place – then reflect an intransigence of soul that might never be penetrated by the light.   This is allegory, of course: the deniers might change their minds on death and the believers might find themselves unable to admit to their own karma or sin.  But it is to the greatness and judgement of the afterlife that miracles point, and to this where our attention might best be drawn.  In this, the miracle saints might stand more as warnings than as puzzling curiosities. 
         
 
         
 
   
 
         
 
         
 
         
 

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          We have just passed a time of reminiscence, and at my age such memories give greater pain than pleasure.  Unusual times come forth, of course.  There was that sunny day in March when I was just 21 when my girlfriend of the time and me walked up a small mountain to push the advent of true spring with an early picnic.  I had brought a jug of cheap rose in a backpack, a blanket and probably some tidbits of food, but when we got to the top under tree cover, we had to spread the cover across a melting crust of snow.  The wine went down slowly as our bottoms froze, along with the rest of us as the clouds covered whatever warmth we thought we had.  All said, the picnic was not going well until we heard a crashing that lasted five or ten seconds before an enormous buck appeared from behind a cluster of hemlock saplings not more than ten feet from our frozen little feast.  He looked at us not in surprise but anger, but moved on, drawn back to whatever great mission Nature had sent him on.   Shaken but also feeling blessed, we retreated down the mountain to await a better time for outdoor frivolities.
 
          Yes, many special memories like that come to light, but they are not the painful ones.  Rather, the memories that bite are the small ones that would mean nothing to anyone else.  In these, we might be drawn back to a time spent kneeling in the grass, or throwing rocks off a bridge into a river.  Maybe they would include summer swims in a cow pond when very young, or a drive with Dad with no specific place to go.  It is those that are most bothersome, not for the darkness of them, but for the light they give – a light that we were unaware of at the time.  If we could go back and grasp the full meaning of those small events, something in us might turn to become something greater.
 
          I was reminded of the lost meaning of our lives a week ago when the picture on my screen- saver changed automatically to a Norman-esque, square-topped sentry tower on the northern coast of France.  What first draws the eye is the ocean and landscape and structure, of course, but then the attention focuses on the images of people walking around the sentry post in their shorts and light shirts, clearly tourists attracted to a building that reminds them of past times.  Ah, Normans, they think, those Frenchified Vikings who eventually conquered Anglo England and gave them what was then recognized as high culture in northern Europe.  In came wine and forks and knives and who knows what kind of fancy dress and dresses, even as they continued to butcher other tribes and kings with swords and maces, just like everybody else.  High society, indeed, the tourists think, standing outside of that curious history that marked the northern races less than one thousand years ago. 
 
          But not now, no.  Today, as tourists all know, we are above such interesting and strange history.  Whether it be in Jerusalem or Flanders Field, we tourists – and we are all now tourists – did not and probably could not partake in such things as those histories tell us.  For as we look at ourselves, we understand without thinking that we are beyond history.  Even the old McDonald’s hamburger emporiums are from another era, or the bells and beads and long hair of Woodstock.  We are now observers.  What happens with us is flat and true, without embellishment, so stripped down that our ‘todays’ also feel without depth.  We are the shallow men, as T.S. Eliot’s poem of one hundred years ago said, even as he wrote from the colorful era of speakeasies and the Charleston.   Even so, for them, they, too, were the shallow men without history.
 
          But it is not so, as it is in our emptiness where those little memories of light lie.  The world has always been like this.  We take our days for granted as if nothing ever changes and all is normal and well – until it isn’t.  Today we feel more disenfranchised, given the world-wide scope of things and the endless promises of objective science, but our reality is has not changed since the last Ice Age, and even before.  We are and always have been essential parts of history, and of nature; we were meant to be here now, and greatness as well as doom surrounds us and penetrates us as much as ever.  We often see this truth in the rearview, and not only from history.  Rather, we might also see it in the little memories of shining light over the hills or the lake, of a child taking our hand, of a chilled morning over a campfire.  What we actively think is not what is actively happening, and our memories prove it.  We are the Normans and the Crusaders as well as the shepherds on the hills over Bethlehem, each moment filled with the trumpets of angels and the blinding light of eternity, as well as the peace of gentle morning.
 
          What jewel can see its own shine?  What chocolate treat can taste the pleasure it gives?  We can only see what we have in reflective distance, but it’s a good thing to know now what we have through this reflection.  We are all great and small and sad and joyful and part of a movement to somewhere that is fulfilling our meaning even as we cannot grasp it.  But to know that, in reflection, should give us the chink in the wall where a small root can grow; just a little opening that reminds us that every moment could be held in breathless amazement, and that we are not bystanders but members of a great army being led by an unfathomably powerful and perfect king.