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          The hardest lesson we have to learn in life starts in infancy and continues on throughout our lives: that is, that none of us are the center of the world.  Dictators have a hard problem with this, often taking down everyone with them when they fail.  Hitler wanted to burn Germany to the ground; emperors from China to Mexico were buried with their concubines and soldiers, sometimes by the tens of thousands.  They thought they were the centers of the world, and then impending death, the great equalizer, came to destroy their fantasy.  If they must die, then, so must everyone else around them.  I suppose this included their dogs. 
 
          The trouble is that each of us has only one full perspective within himself, which makes it subjectively clear that each IS his own center of the universe.  To make it even more complicated, each of us really is at the center of the universe, which includes all of us, and all at the same time.  How true this is becomes clear when confronting death, as millions did during the great world wars of the last century.
 
          In Joseph Loconte’s sublime book, A Hobbit, A Wardrobe, And a Great War, we are treated to the effect of one of the great wars– WWI – on two of the most influential authors of our time, C.S. Lewis, and J.R.R. Tolkien, reflected primarily in their best known works, The Chronicles of Narnia and The Lord of the Rings trilogy, respectively.  Both were young men during the conflict, Lewis only coming of age for service towards the end of the war.  Both fought on the Western front, which was and still might stand as the most hellish place on earth to have ever existed.  Here, millions of men remained virtually unmoved in stinking trenches for years at a time, surrounded by rotting corpses, excrement, and disease (the greatest modern pandemic, the Spanish Influenza, sprang from these pits of hell).  Both witnessed the maddening futility of dying for one’s country for a yard of land here, or a farm house there, just to be pushed back after massive casualties the following day or week or month.  And both, as Cambridge dons (professors), were surrounded afterwards by the effects of the hideous futility of this conflict.
 
           We know the effects of this war well.  While religion and spirituality had been waning among the upper classes since the publication of Darwin’s and Marx’s startling works in the mid- 19th century, the Great War hammered everyone else with the pain and disillusionment of cultural deconstruction.  God apparently was indifferent to human suffering, so much so that many came to believe that either he didn’t exist or that he simply wasn’t worthy of worship or even respect.  The institutions of government and religion were rightly proven to be fallible at best and complicit in mass murder for profit at worst.  Common morality and behavior were often tossed away along with belief in these institutions.  Darwin and Marx, along with many others, helped with the rest.  For the former, the designs many had seen in nature were now expressed in terms of indifferent randomness, and for the latter, the institutions of order were seen as only points of power that bent the masses to the will of the ruling class.  For those who fought in the trenches or lost loved ones in them, as almost everyone in Europe did, this loss of confidence is more than understandable. 
 
          The mass movement away from institutions and morality of the past is obviously relevant to this day, as mores and beliefs of hundreds or even thousands of years continue to fall.  Oddly, however, this did not happen with the subjects in Loconte’s biography.  And, in contrast to the popular movements of their day, this lack of cynicism began with ancient cultural myths. 
 
          This was due at first to Tolkien, the elder of the two.  Even as a Catholic, he had been fascinated with Northern European myths for years.  By the time of the end of WWI, his research and experiences in the trenches had brought him to one great conclusion: that legitimate myths were not made by men trying to understand God, but by God trying to help men understand Him.  Just as the Old Testament differs from the New, so the Eternal had to speak to people within the confines of their limited understandings.  In the Judeo/Christian myth (I use this respectfully), God had to teach his people the meaning of his overpowering rule through the moral laws given by the prophets, which were intended to carry people beyond their cultural limitations.  For Tolkien, the Judeo/Christian myth was much like many others, with two exceptions: the former brought one to an overwhelmingly positive conclusion, and it was historically real -   that is, the Judeo/Christian myth was fulfilled within the confines of normal rational human thought.  With this realization, doubt and cynicism were bridged, first by Tolkien and then by Lewis.  With this, the two separated themselves from the pack of their peers as well as from the increasing trend in the West of secular pessimism.
 
          But for a deeper look into the thoughts of these two great writers, we must first enter the Ring.
 
          The ring of power: we are seeing that on display even as this is written in Ukraine, where the frustrations of Russia’s Putin have finally boiled over into all-out war.  Never mind that the man is the richest in the world and can have or do anything he wants in his vast nation.  No – the desire for ever-increasing power never ends.  This reflects the temptations of this world, where, if left unchecked, the ego comes to see itself as the center of the world and the arbiter of all things.  So it was that the aristocrats of Europe’s past could throw away millions of lives of their lesser citizens; and so it is that the “lesser” citizens can, then and now, throw away the wisdom of the ancients.  And so it was that the Ring in the trilogy, taken from the great and evil Mordor, came to ruin the poor everyman, Gollum, with its promise of power.  This ring was to come into the possession of Frodo, another noble but humble everyman, whose job it was to destroy the ring in the cauldron of Mount Doom before the Evil One could regain it and shut out all the remaining light of the world. 
 
          In the culmination of the trilogy, Frodo does arrive at Mount Doom and is in the position to cast the ring into the pit – but he cannot do it.  He, too, has succumbed to the power of the ring.  It is only the power-lust of Gollum at the end that saves the world.  He bites off the finger of Frodo that holds the ring, but falls into the cauldron in the process, along with the ring.  Gollum, who was once a Hobbit like Frodo, might then be seen as the dark side of Frodo, who has allowed himself to be corrupted by the things of the Earth.  This part of him, and in all of us, must die, as our bodies die, so that, with divine guidance, we might return from the dark pit, resurrected, to walk into the light.
 
          Such it is that the myth manufactured by Tolkien is a cheat-sheet to the great God-given myth of Christianity.  The ring of power tempts us all, in both big ways and small, as it stands for the driving force of our individual egos.  We might tame this drive if we follow the moral laws set for us by religion and/or society, but in the end, we must finally fail and die – if we rely only on our own will-power.  Ultimate defeat is what we find in the plurality of the world’s myths.  In the J-C myth, however, God’s grace will come to save us if we have willed it to our greatest abilities.  The intervention of Gollum, like the intervention of Judas Iscariot, is an inevitable evil that can and will be worked into the good by divine will.  The failings of Peter, who denied Christ three times out of fear for himself, will be pardoned and made good by Grace, whose ultimate reality is seen in the historical presence and resurrection of Jesus Christ. 
 
          So it is that the saving of the world is left to the everyman within us, for each of us is indeed the center of his own salvation.  In Tolkien’s view, every soldier he saw fight and often die on the battle field was his own world and carried within him his own weaknesses and greatness, the latter found in the giving of self for the sake of his comrades-in-arms.  Our failings are due to our self-centeredness, but it is within the self, where we are the center of all things, where salvation is and must be found.  Thus, each of us is the hero of his own myth.  In view of both Tolkien and Lewis, which myth, and which ending we experience is up to us.  We must either have the courage to give our faith to the one who fulfilled and exceeded Man’s greatest myths, or carry the burden of this world alone and fail at the mouth of the cauldron.      
 
 
       

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          I know where the term “bucket list” comes from.  When a person dies, his body often jerks violently as life leaves him, causing the bucket that (in olden days) lay at the foot of the bed for bodily wastes, to be kicked over.  Sure, that’s easy, but why would one leave a bucket at the foot of the bed?  Why not put it on a stand or chest a little removed?  Maybe beds were made differently back when people died at home.  Not that most of us would know much about any of this, because almost all of us will die in a hospital bed, gray and gasping and only occasionally conscious.  I have not seen the last minutes of a life, although my sister described the violent jerking of my father’s body in death agony over the phone in real time.   Not fun, and another story, but I have seen many people in the last days of their lives and it is hard to imagine many of them doing much of anything.  My mother-in-law almost disappeared before our eyes, asking in a moment of consciousness, “What’s happening to me?”  That still gives me the chills.
 
          Anyway, as in most things, we have vulgarized this unpleasant experience to make it more – well, palatable doesn’t seem to fit the bill, but let’s just say more “real,” as in this-worldly.  And so we got the expression, and then the movie that made the expression a topic of discussion, much like a game of rummy on a boring winter’s night.  What’s on your bucket list?  What, that is, do you really want to do or have before you kick the bedpan, screw the pooch, auger in? 
 
          Boy has that changed with age.  I have written before that what I wanted most in 4th grade were high-explosive fireworks (M-80’s, cherry bombs) and what I wanted to do most was travel the country or the world to anywhere but central Connecticut.  Later it might have been to live in a house in the New Mexican desert with a hot chick and a bale of high-grade weed, to, you know, lay around the chanty and put a good buzz on.  Then, to travel to the Amazon jungles to live with Indians, which, shockingly, I did.  Then to get a great job at a prominent university and travel to exotic places at government expense.  Then to sell books and maybe live in Montana near other big-selling authors.  Hawaii wouldn’t have been bad, either.  And always throughout, I can say with honesty, that I wanted to and expected to see the face of God in one way or another, something that may or may not have collided with the other goals on my bucket list.
 
          Well, of course they would have.  God and a hot babe, the two of us high as a kite in hot tub?  Not exactly your everyday monastic experience.  That’s too easy, however.  What really was at the base of those former bucket lists?  And what is there now?
 
          Back then, we can say I was inspired by the anticipation of physical pleasure.  But now it has become, if not more complicated, more subtle.
 
          Surprisingly, I have become comfortable with middle-class American existence.  I cannot buy most of what I would really want, or could but at too great a cost, like a high-end classical guitar or a winter home in Costa Rica, but I really don’t care.  I can’t think of any one thing or place that I would like to have or experience that would make it on a “last wish” list.  The base needs on my Maslow pyramid are fulfilled and what the hell else do I need as far as places and things go?  I’ve been to and owned already, and no longer really want to be to or have.  Fly to Bali?  Too many tourists and a hell of a flight, especially now with masks.  A mansion?  Are you kidding?  I would spend my whole time trimming the hedges and washing the floors.  Sure I would still like that expensive guitar, but I would fear dropping it or it being damaged by a quickly changing temperature, and anyway, I would probably soon discover that I am not skilled enough to really make it sing.  No, too many hassles or care needed for all of that travel and stuff.  Remove them all from the bucket.
 
          Those are all things or places or bodies that I can use, and those, for the most part, do not really cause the intense longing that they once did or might have done.  Still, there are some possessions and experiences that I would like to have, the kind I suspect many of us older folks might want to have.  Let me begin with respect. 
 
          Let’s face it: once at a certain age, no one wants to be you because you’re old and ugly and can’t even manage to turn around towards the back seat of the car to see if you remembered your cane.  Women only look your way to see if you’ve fallen over or if it was you who passed gas on the way to the counter.  Men hope you will not use a check book at said counter and take up 10 minutes of their precious time to pay for that mega-container of Metamucil.  Grown children start to wonder how much time and money they will have to spend on you before you, well, kick the bucket, and no one wants to hear how much bubble gum cost in 1963, or how much better American Culture was before San Francisco spiked the Bay with LSD. 
 
          Ah, but we old folks can have respect and adulation and admiration for things done in the past.  Some would never be on an older person’s bucket list, such as service in Vietnam or pulling people from a burning building.  Others, though, would be, especially wealth and power.  Oh, how some of the old love wealth and power, the old men and women who sit at the top of financial empires or Senate committees!   But those things and acts that give honor now would be from bucket lists past, and a bucket cannot alter time.  No, when the final act arrives, we will not be able to garner that wealth and experience that will fill a bucket.  Too late on those.
 
          But there is always physical health.  I had an uncle who ran marathons into his early 70’s, until his knees went and he started peeing blood.  Still, he would swim Narragansett Bay in Rhode Island every morning into his early 90’s, at least a half-mile each way in a strong ocean current.  That got my respect, but I cannot put that in my bucket, either.  No amount of push-ups will get me to that level now, but I suppose I can outlast my old – and I mean old – friends from high school.  That would be like being able to drink more at the frat party back in the day, but nah.  Living too long stresses the family and the savings account, and besides, one only gets respect for that when dead, as in, “I have good genes.  My (father, uncle, great aunt) lived to be 97 and drank like a fish and smoked like a chimney!” 
 
         So now we get down to brass tacks, as in, “for my bucket list, I would like an easy death.  Dying in my sleep after a day at the golf course would be nice.”  No respect there, but we are at least back to the physical side of the bucket list.  Having seen too much of the lingering modern way of death, an easy death is not such a bad thing to fill the bucket, but there is a caveat.  According to Elizabeth Kubler Ross, in the long run, it is preferable for the dying to know they are dying so that they have a few months to set things in order.  You can pay for that great niece’s education in nursing and tell your children that you’re sorry for being a jerk for this or that, or even – and in this my father would have rather died – tell people that you love them.  This is a sorting out that can lead to much more than respect.  It can lead to a sense of a complete life better than a last bungee jump off a bridge over the snake river, or a final consort with a high-end hooker in Vegas (all clean and legal, of course, but what do you care at that point?)   In this, this sorting out, I can sense a better way to fill the final bucket, but it is not front and center to me just yet.  After all this jabber in this essay, I still have the feeling that my bucket list has not been fulfilled. 
 
          From this, then, I have to remember what was always present in all the passions and highs and lows of trying to work out a good life: experiencing the presence of God.  This is not an idle notion to many of us, for fully 40% of Americans say that they have experienced exactly that.  My guess would be that this is on the low side, as many would not want to speak about it or have tucked the memory back somewhere behind the pursuit of a present-day bucket list (buy that lottery ticket!)  It may not be a conscious “tucking,” as I forget those experiences on a daily basis and turn back to the more pedestrian bucket list of having a good walk or a nice meal.  However, every time such a feeling arrives, it is abundantly clear that all the other stuff is secondary -to -nothing in comparison.  In those moments, the truth is so obvious that THIS has always been the only thing on the list and that all else has been nothing more than a blind attempt to fill our inborn bucket, that “God-sized hole in the heart.” It is a truth that I can write about even though it is seldom experienced.  I still want that great classical guitar, but something knows better.
 
          I have not seen the Bucket List movie, but I bet it ends with the old geezers realizing that it was the people in their lives that filled the bucket, not the fun and fancy things in their lives.  Of course they would be right, but why people?  What is it in people that we do not see until we are nearing death?  Could it be our shared emptiness and longing that has always been pulling us together in a quest for God?  Could it be our shared adventure in working out, like old comrades in arms, this ultimate campaign of our lives?  I’d bet it is. 
 
            So I guess it is you and me together who fill up our bucket of wishes, all of us all along on the road to Oz, all of us finally understanding that Kansas has always been the home we needed and wanted most.  All along is has really been about you and me and Auntie Em and a shared need as long and wide as the limitless prairie. 
 
              
 
 
       
          

 
          No, I do not want to go back into slippery philosophy now.  The weather has turned, if for only two days, and yesterday brought a beautiful raiment of fuzzy ice on the trees as fog rose and condensed on the still-frozen limbs.  Today feels more like spring, with temperatures going to the 40’s and the sun as bright as a summer’s day at the beach.  Refreshed with hopefulness and gratitude, it would be a shame to bring it all back into the dismal, albeit necessary, science of balancing words with the rational.  
 
          So I will not.  Rather, I will focus on the miracle of synchronicity that occurred around the last essay/blog concerning “equity,” politics and spirituality. 
 
          Yes, that last one brought me controversy as I knew it would.  Why it would, besides the subtleties of language in philosophy, did not occur to me until the storm of indignation hit: then I remembered.  I had been there before, this time as an observer rather than a participant. 
 
           It happened about five or six or seven years ago with the arrival of a new priest to the parish who had a penchant for telling people what the Catholic Church taught: just say NO to homosexuality, contraception, abortion, and, most relevant here, government-run socialism.  The last was unexpected but was explained in some classes the priest taught, not with his own words but with those of Catholic doctrine and several popes.  Of the later, he brought in an encyclical of Pope Leo XIII, written in 1891.  At that time, various forms of socialism were being experimented with in Spain and (I believe) Italy, where the governments, per definition, were taking control of property and its redistribution.  Pope Leo saw in this the imminent danger of the government replacing religion and spirituality concerning work and wealth distribution, and so acted upon it with his writings.  Yes, the pope agreed, people should get fair wages and safe work conditions, but property must remain in the hands of individuals, for reasons given in my last essay.  First and foremost for the pope – and this I did not mention but should have – should come the family.  His signature message was that economics and government should be subordinate to the family, from which all people and training and human love come.  Not profit (capitalism), then, and not government control (socialism) would be followed, but rather an obligation of those in power to empower the family.  After all, It would be to everyone’s good, forming a stable, functional, and reasonably just (as far as humans can be) society, and it would be in line with God’s plan, embedded in our specie’s biology.
 
          So that is where the last essay came from, not, as some might think, from some right-wing pundit on Fox News.  But all this is a digression from the point of this essay, which will not, as said, focus on politics with religion and all the vitriol that inevitably follows.  Rather, it will be on the synchronicity of events that followed the essay and the realization that my thoughts had come from Pope Leo XIII through a controversial conservative priest.
 
          For one, the arguments in the class that sifted into my memory were primarily between the priest and Mary Ann, a wonderful older woman who had long been committed to the social struggle as a radical activist. She reasoned, and not too poorly, that the Church was hiding behind its theology to protect the property of the wealthy, in hopes of keeping them on its side.  This, indeed, has been done on and off in Catholic countries for centuries.  On the other hand, she could not see the point the priest was trying to make, which was that the spiritual dimension must always come first (as a guiding principle to the physical reality of the family). 
 
          Not long after, she lay dying of leukemia, attended to by this same priest.  At her funeral eulogy, the Father said (from my memory): “She died a perfect death, all her questions and arguments answered.  She died in the arms of God.”
 
          I believe it.  But back to the point: just last night I was reading a biography of G. K. Chesterton, a brilliant novelist, journalist, and Catholic apologist from early 20th century England.  As I rounded the bend towards the final chapters of the book, Knight of the Holy Ghost, by Dale Ahlquist, the heart of Chesterton’s philosophy came to light, formalized by a doctrine Chesterton called “distributism.”  The nut of this was that the family should come first, bending government and economics to its service.  In this, Chesterton emphatically stated that his source came from the encyclical Rerum Novarum, the name given to the very same encyclical mentioned above, written by Pope Leo X111 in 1891. 
 
           I can say with absolute certainty that my last essay was consciously stimulated only by my son and his comment “we can have equity (equality of outcomes) in heaven, not on earth” mentioned in a cabin buried in snow far up north.  Immediately the parable of the Vintner came to mind, where he gives the same pay to the last as to the first, and on I went from there.  It was not until later that I realized the theology used was from Pope Leo, and not until last night that I learned that the philosophy of the great Chesterton had come from the same source. 
 
          Around we go, then.  Synchronicity reminds us, even shows us, that there is a plan.  The Holy Spirit works in wondrous ways, far beyond our own reasoning and imagination.  It is the very essence of creativity and cosmic influence, working far above the static mathematics of the astrologer.  This wind will go where it may, but will always influence us for our betterment in ways we could never imagine.  This latest experience of it was of no great importance except to show that the Spirit is here.  It shows us that it is working both on warming days with frost-etched trees, as well as in the depths of bitter cold in a snow-bound cabin.  So it is with our lives, that even in our worst moments, it is working for us in ways beyond our grasp.
 
          While it is most important for us to believe in this continuous cosmic intervention, let me imagine for a moment what it might mean for my argument.  Is the Spirit showing me that I am on the right path, or that I must read more thoroughly the sources of my thoughts to, by God, get it right?  Probably both.  And so, with apologies for my limitations, I will peer again into the minds of those greater than my own more earnestly before the winter winds blow again and I am left only with the vision of the dismal science to search for truth through a darkened glass.