I do not fear the footsteps of soldiers on my stairs, or dread long bread lines at the store. Gangs aren’t roaming my neighborhood and no one in the house is in need of a fix or is hallucinating monsters and vampires, knife in hand. I’m old, but not that old, and as far as I know, not all that close to death, in human terms. And yet there is gloom and foreboding. The sky is a heavy gray, and wet snow is draped over rotting cornstalks in uneven stripes that betray the frozen earth beneath. Inside, the air is dense, almost suffocating, and I need to get out – but to what?
None of this is unusual – it is winter’s lament – but it blocks something so in need. Humor. Levity. Lightness. But where is such sentiment under a sky that is only a tattered blanket settled uneasily to fend off the darkness of infinity? Death is there and there, but not here – not yet. But someday it will tear that little blanket from this world, and then what? Does the earth fall from beneath the feet and we fall forever, hopeless in a black well of nothingness? Or is there a final judgement, when we look into the eyes of God and he sees us as we are – small, weak, sniveling, crying out for simple pleasures like spoiled children?
It is funny how questions are answered; were the answers there all along and we have not noticed, or were they placed before us to answer just in time for our needs? It doesn’t matter, I suppose, as I have found again and again the phrases, “Be not afraid,” and “Be lighthearted,” pushed before me as a teacher might help a slow student. I am a slow student because I cannot help but be affected by what is most immediately evident, like the man who insists that the world is flat. Look, he’ll say, with your own eyes and tell me, where is this ball you are talking about? It is clearly a flat plate, and the sky must be like an ocean, and the world must then rest on the back of a turtle.
So it is that the obvious does not always lead to the obvious. Death is most certain, and we fear death, but do we know it? We think we do, in the stench of rotting animals along the road and the waft of formaldehyde in the funeral parlor, but what is it really? If we were truly practical, we would notice that the world does sit in the middle of a kind of ocean, one whose tides are all linked to profound celestial forces, so intricate and vast as to be beyond our greatest reckoning. Yet we still see the turtle beneath us, that dark well of nothingness or the angry hand of a god, things that have nothing to do with anything but our own shortened reasoning. There is more to life – and death – than meets the eye. Like the planet Earth, life is not a flat plate, but a globe that somehow stays suspended and protected from a vastness that is truly terrifying.
Somehow. When we were told that the world was round, we believed it, for the wisdom of our teachers first, then from the fact that ships did not fall over the edge, then from photos from space. When we are told now that there is more to life than death, we should believe it, because of the mystery of existence, because of the wisdom of our teachers, and because of those who have raised the dead in defiance of our simple notions. Flat world, hard death; round world, eternal life. The truth defies our senses, but does appeal to our logic once we are shown – once we learn how to see.
That is why we are advised, in the face of our overwhelming ignorance, to have a light heart. We have been told throughout the ages that life – and death – is more than we first grasp. We have been taught in one mythological form or another – whatever form that might help us best to understand - to not believe what the simple horizon tells us. We have been told in all manner of stories that, like the roundness of earth and the presence of gravity and physical laws, there are other laws at work that explain life so much better than its immediate form. And in them, we are taught not to fear, for our ship will not fall off the edge but rather continue, on and on, without end.
Have lightness of heart. The grayness is a thin cover, the season a few months’ time. All will be revealed to those who seek someday. It will be OK. Make no mistake, this is not the best of possible worlds, but neither is January the best of possible months. This, too, shall pass. The horizon does not really end at the edge of our world, but goes on and on and on.
None of this is unusual – it is winter’s lament – but it blocks something so in need. Humor. Levity. Lightness. But where is such sentiment under a sky that is only a tattered blanket settled uneasily to fend off the darkness of infinity? Death is there and there, but not here – not yet. But someday it will tear that little blanket from this world, and then what? Does the earth fall from beneath the feet and we fall forever, hopeless in a black well of nothingness? Or is there a final judgement, when we look into the eyes of God and he sees us as we are – small, weak, sniveling, crying out for simple pleasures like spoiled children?
It is funny how questions are answered; were the answers there all along and we have not noticed, or were they placed before us to answer just in time for our needs? It doesn’t matter, I suppose, as I have found again and again the phrases, “Be not afraid,” and “Be lighthearted,” pushed before me as a teacher might help a slow student. I am a slow student because I cannot help but be affected by what is most immediately evident, like the man who insists that the world is flat. Look, he’ll say, with your own eyes and tell me, where is this ball you are talking about? It is clearly a flat plate, and the sky must be like an ocean, and the world must then rest on the back of a turtle.
So it is that the obvious does not always lead to the obvious. Death is most certain, and we fear death, but do we know it? We think we do, in the stench of rotting animals along the road and the waft of formaldehyde in the funeral parlor, but what is it really? If we were truly practical, we would notice that the world does sit in the middle of a kind of ocean, one whose tides are all linked to profound celestial forces, so intricate and vast as to be beyond our greatest reckoning. Yet we still see the turtle beneath us, that dark well of nothingness or the angry hand of a god, things that have nothing to do with anything but our own shortened reasoning. There is more to life – and death – than meets the eye. Like the planet Earth, life is not a flat plate, but a globe that somehow stays suspended and protected from a vastness that is truly terrifying.
Somehow. When we were told that the world was round, we believed it, for the wisdom of our teachers first, then from the fact that ships did not fall over the edge, then from photos from space. When we are told now that there is more to life than death, we should believe it, because of the mystery of existence, because of the wisdom of our teachers, and because of those who have raised the dead in defiance of our simple notions. Flat world, hard death; round world, eternal life. The truth defies our senses, but does appeal to our logic once we are shown – once we learn how to see.
That is why we are advised, in the face of our overwhelming ignorance, to have a light heart. We have been told throughout the ages that life – and death – is more than we first grasp. We have been taught in one mythological form or another – whatever form that might help us best to understand - to not believe what the simple horizon tells us. We have been told in all manner of stories that, like the roundness of earth and the presence of gravity and physical laws, there are other laws at work that explain life so much better than its immediate form. And in them, we are taught not to fear, for our ship will not fall off the edge but rather continue, on and on, without end.
Have lightness of heart. The grayness is a thin cover, the season a few months’ time. All will be revealed to those who seek someday. It will be OK. Make no mistake, this is not the best of possible worlds, but neither is January the best of possible months. This, too, shall pass. The horizon does not really end at the edge of our world, but goes on and on and on.
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