“I don’t know what you have experienced to make you “know” but I haven’t, so don’t give me that crap!”

My husband was expressing his dismay over my encouragement to keep his heart open to the love that surrounded him, and to remember that the door to his heart opens from the inside. He is always in such pain, having been chronically depressed since childhood. He struggles through the dimness and density of his layers of weight, not only metaphorically but also in the reality of his body.   I have experienced something years ago that shifted my world view in what seemed like a matter of seconds, the kind of seconds that last throughout one’s life, ticking away but stopped in deep memory, waiting to hold and sustain me when I forget.

My husband and I had been having one of many “nature of reality” Sunday morning discussions, and often our conversations would end with him insisting to me that I can’t make my own reality.

“OH yeah, watch me, here I go!” And I would point out that his view excluded my point of reference, but mine included his.

Inevitably he would respond: “But yours is wrong!”

For many years I had been on a spiritually seeking pathway, trying to find a philosophy or structure that I could adopt as a roadmap to nirvana…or some such heavenly state. During my teen years my mom and I had discussed God, and I had proclaimed it all bullshit. She had asked me to keep my heart open, and had said that all paths to God are valid.

When I said, “Mom, you aren’t getting me- THERE IS NO GOD” She replied, ever-calm, that that is a valid path to god.

When I yelled, “How can you believe in a god that has allowed your husband to be killed in a car crash and looked the other way with all those poor people you try to help?”

Mom just quietly answered that she couldn’t have made it without the strength of her faith. This would send me off in a rant against organized religion and the historical damage to humanity that had been caused by the patriarchal paradigms such religions had made the pervasive social norm. I believe her quiet non-engagement with my fury at finding my self disillusioned with my growing awareness of the pain of the world actually shortened my adolescent rebellion at my family of origin’s unconditional love of the world and its people. She simply gave me nothing to push against.

In some ways my journey in my twenties was to find one of those paths to god that I could fully embrace. How could declaring no God be a path to God? My mother must not know anything! A “Doubting Thomas” by nature, and raised loosely as a Christian, I never met a religion I didn’t pick apart for what did not work for me and my philosophy. Which was just about every aspect since my philosophy was such a moving target in my 20’s with every reading pushing and pulling at it like taffy on a pull machine. Catholicism? I couldn’t buy a religion that had you confess your “sins” to a god who was supposed to already be omnipotent, but doesn’t know if I’m sorry for what I had done? Judaism? The inherent sexism I read into the Hebrew tradition immediately put me off. Hinduism? Sorry, but monkey-faced or elephant-headed gods seemed like a cartoon-like attempt to translate myth into a leap-of-faith I was not ready to make. I played a bit with pagan and Wiccan rituals, but felt ridiculous and out of place in a modern suburban neighborhood bowing to our trees. Even Buddhism insisted that the point was to accumulate merit for the next existence- I wanted support and understanding for this existence, now.

I already had 2 children by the time I was 24. I was taking classes at night; I was aiding in a preschool where my son attended, and cleaning houses on the side to make ends meet. I had taken an eastern philosophy class and was recently focused on early morning meditation, the only time I was free from the soon- to- awaken demands of my life.

I would move through the darkened house, feeling the cold, hard shift under foot from carpet to floor as I put the coffee on, then shuffling in to the only open space in that tiny house to light a flaring match to the long candle stick on my mini altar. Day after day, for about 2 months, I would try this, most of the time frustrated or constantly distracted by the heater’s ticking, the dogs scratching, the coffee brewing, or the patterns of shadows on the wall made by the candle light.

No matter my effort, my inner words always raced and rambled, refusing to quiet, refusing to allow the peace that the books and classes said existed for those who practiced. I often got up from my half-lotus position with minor excuses- was that the kids stirring? Did I forget to put the coffee pot all the way in? Oh, the dog needs to be let out. Now my leg itches, or a myriad of other ridiculous ideas or memories that pitter-pattered at the window of my brain, my imagined altar of light never allowed full focus.

Then came one of the rare days where both kids were in carpools and I had a morning at home to myself to catch up the seeming self-perpetuating pile of laundry. I decided to get back to the meditation that was such a miserable failure earlier that morning. I determinedly re-situated myself on the carpet, facing a bookcase with my eclectic altar, and re-lit the candles that were supposed to be my focal point. I was PMSing, irritated at my husband for making fun of me as he poured his coffee and got out the door for work, chanting “OM.” So I approached my meditation with resentment and a bit of fury. My mind went from peaceful thoughts to cursing god- “If you are there, why can’t you show me, why can’t you reveal yourself, why the big secret? If you are there, why all the suffering? What about the children? What about war?

Are you even worth pursuing? What am I pursuing?” It felt as though there was a tender, yet impenetrable membrane that if I could just push through I would be born whole and radiant and forever in peace.

The internal rant went on, “Don’t I love enough? Haven’t I helped others enough? Don’t I deserve the giant love too?” My chatter then turned to challenge: “If you don’t show me- I’m giving up! I don’t have time for this, I don’t have support for this, and you have given me nothing!”

At that point I actually smiled, realizing I was making myself grand. But a Sufi poet, known as Hafiz wrote these touching words about God, “ God revealed a sublime truth to the world/ when He sang,/ “I am made whole/ by your life./ Each soul, each soul /completes Me.”   These words had given me a gift lodged solidly amidst the other bits and pieces of my “pick and choose’ religious ramblings: As much as I yearned for God, god yearned for me.

That morning’s intensity soon faded with the dryer’s buzz. Sighing, I got up, feeling a bit sad that I was going to melt back down into the drudgery of daily mechanics with out aspiring or finding something a bit more. I gathered the warm, detergent- perfumed laundry from the dryer and dumped it on the second- hand bright orange couch we had in the living room. I folded without awareness of the clothes between my hands, sorting it into piles by ownership and drawer distribution.   My mind was on mundane things like the making of lunches, picking up the carpool, shopping to be done, interlaced with the countless thoughts that pierce our concentrated focus with a thousand arrows of distraction.

I was walking into my bedroom with a neat stack of t-shirts and was turning to the dresser to pull open the wooden drawer when I was suddenly filled, I mean FILLED, with Love. Beaming through me, surrounding me, shooting out from every tip of my finger and each toe- a golden, all-consuming Love. It continued to build until I was down on my knees with tears streaming down my face and nothing else in the world but this floating elation of being safe, being cherished beyond comprehension. It built more still, vibrating through my eyes and lips, in and out of my ears, my genitals, my organs. I felt I was on the edge of joyfully bursting apart and as suddenly as it came- it was gone.

I collapsed on the pile of shirts on the floor and continued to let the tears spill for some minutes before my mind returned from infinite gratitude to thought. And somehow I knew that these bodies simply cannot contain this amount of love. I knew that so much more existed than could be perceived by these bodies that it was an act of love that it is held back.

I went to my journal and tried to write about it, but my pen wouldn’t move. I had been held in the hands of all-ness. I had been given the sign I had demanded as a petulant child might demand candy. I felt humbled, awed and relieved. I felt sad that it was gone and a giant hole remained that was at once unbearable and familiar: The forever yearning. The void that everyone is desperately trying to fill with drugs, TV, art, exercise, religion, human to human love- all inadequate to the job.

It dawned on me that we aren’t meant to stay in constant connection because we wouldn’t function on the daily level that the body needs to journey through these lives.

After that day, I know. I guess I always knew but it had felt as though a distant light kept moving away as I moved toward it and I was so tired of the darkness and dreariness I didn’t realize the light was in me, at all times in me. Trite, cliché, yet I just needed to lift my heart and eyes to stop peering at the darkness.

On that day of my husband’s outburst I turned to him and told him– I did have experience that told me we are love and that it is each of our journey returning to love that we are here to live. And I found my mother’s words lowing out of my mouth and toward my husband- keep your heart open, all paths are valid.

I carry that moment in my soul, and I have had a few other moments, again often at times when I am actually looking away at every day chores of life. Suddenly, I will be swept away by beauty or peace or utter contentment and then I can endure the more painful aspects of life that are the deepening, the enriching points that work to make the love we are, all the deeper. I carry this faith to this day.

 

References:

Hafiz, as translated by Daniel Ladinsky, The Gift,

Although I am sure most people relate “Faith” with their religious beliefs, I was not raised within any religion other than for a few months in grade school when I attended a Lutheran church with a neighbor.  All I remember from that experience is playing a Shepherd in the Christmas pageant so, that’s how I learned about the birth of Jesus.  I don’t recall being there for Easter so His death and resurrection remained an unknown to me.  I would say mystery but it is, in fact, a mystery even to those who know and believe the story.  So for me, faith has more generally applied to a trust or belief in anything.

I was not a confident child.  Unguided, I struggled as most kids do through adolescence and high school.  Being not overly confident, I never dared aspire to much.  Not until entering adulthood did I began gaining faith in my own abilities.  Now, retired and looking back, I wonder how my life would have been different had I aspired to more, or at least different, things.  I think, maybe, like Marlon Brando’s character in On the Waterfront that “I could’a been a contender!”

As I have grown older, and hopefully wiser or at least more experienced, what I have had faith in has changed; losing some and gaining in others.  For instance I am losing faith that our politicians or the political system are up to their task.  I don’t trust that our educational system is preparing our children for the burdens of real life, instead teaching them that feelings are as important as facts and their failures are the fault of others.  And the news media!  I have lost both faith and any hope that they will fairly and accurately report the news.  Entertainment and opinion have replaced the Who, What, Where, When and Why reporting of Huntley and Brinkley or a Walter Cronkite whose days are long gone.

But, as I grow older, and become more aware of my mortality, I am beginning to think more about religious faith.  I have always believed there is a God and therefore, probably, an afterlife.  My wife is Catholic and I have tried to join her church through its adult program.  Three times in fact, but I quit each time when the priest teaching the course injected politics or other issues unrelated to religious teachings.

Occasionally, though things have happened reinforcing my burgeoning beliefs or suspicions.  I’m sure most of us have had Guardian Angel moments; those close calls where disaster was avoided by unknown forces or something of a religious nature.  The strongest proof for me happened after my mother died.  I stepped out of the hospital room to call our daughter who lived a hundred miles away.  As soon as she answered the phone she said, “Grandma died, didn’t she?”

I told her “yes” and she asked, “About 5 minutes ago?”  When I asked her how she knew, she said “That’s when I felt her give me a hug.”  Now, a hug from my mom was uniquely recognizable because for the last year of her life she was so thin she was literally just skin and bones.

I am now inclined to believe there is something there; including an afterlife which must be earned in this life. Recognizing that I have grown older, I am starting to feel an urge to prepare for as many outcomes as possible.  So, I might just try that church thing again.  And, sooner rather than later might be a good idea!

Grandmothers and their joys and waiting patiently for what will be.
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When I was twelve or thirteen, my family moved to New Jersey, and I became friends with a group of little girls who were all good at, and experienced at, babysitting. I wanted to earn money, and I wanted to be good at the job too, but I wasn’t. I didn’t have any younger siblings and I didn’t feel comfortable telling younger kids what to do. I had no idea how to take care of them, what to do with them, or how to keep them in line if they refused to eat dinner or go to bed or follow their parents’ rules. I didn’t expect co-operation and was always relieved when I got it, and was devastated when a child stayed up later than his/her bedtime or was rude to me. I didn’t mind taking care of really little children who would sleep the whole time I was there, but I never enjoyed the company of the children I was supervising if they were awake, needing attention, asking questions, wanting me to interact. I just looked forward to their going to bed, so I could eat snacks and watch TV and get paid for it.

My first time babysitting, I felt very awkward. I was just a year or so older than the older of the two kids who lived next door, Steve and Diane. It was slightly embarrassing for me when their mother asked me to “babysit” the two of them one evening, because I knew Steve would resent being looked after by a girl who was almost exactly his age. But I took the job with the anticipation of making some hard cash: the going rate was about 75 cents an hour.

It was an easy evening: I watched TV for most of it, and Steve and Diane disappeared, presumably to bed. When their parents came home about 10 or 11, they handed me some money which I was too shy to count until I was out the door and walking home, a distance of about 100 feet. Then I found three dollars and fifty cents, which I held in my hand inside my pocket, thinking, “This is real money, and it’s mine. This is the first time I’ve ever earned money, and I’m going to do something good with this money.” I don’t recall what I did — that was enough to buy an album, or many 45s. Maybe I bought myself magazines like SEVENTEEN or TIGER BEAT. That family never asked me to babysit again, but others in the neighborhood — young parents desperate for a night out — did. They’d call me when Kim and Bonnie and Christie and the other girls were already booked. I used to accept the jobs, and do them, but I never liked it, and I was never very good at it.

I was glad when I got a little older, and we moved to England, and I could get a job serving tea and scones for 50 pence an hour. It was much harder work, and I had to take a bus a long way both ways to get to the cafe, but I got to interact with interesting adults, instead of children. I felt excited and interested in serving people nice meals, in  a way I never had been about minding kids. And maybe that’s part of why I went on to not have children, but become a pretty good cook.

Other than possibly a bicycle I got for Christmas when I was 11 or 12 years old, I cannot recall any gift I ever received as being so special that I’ve kept it, or remembered one so fondly that I’d consider it my best ever.  It might just be that I did not pay enough attention.  An opinion reinforced when I hear others reminisce fondly over the smallest of events from their own childhood.

Subsequently, I did not pay enough attention to my children’s childhood.  My excuse is, of course, that I was busy working to support my family.  But, it may instead be that I was still in whatever selfish cocoon prevented me from noticing what was going on around me as a child.

I am not generally considered the warm and fuzzy one in our family.  I used to joke that when I retired, I’d work as a greeter at Wal-Mart.  But the universal response to that was, “You don’t have the personality for it.”  Over my first 55 plus years, while I had not completely become a grumpy old man I must admit to being more than a little jaded.  Dealing with the day to day grind of being an adult, a career in law enforcement and the ill effects of being a political and news junkie had hardened me to sensitive feelings, left me unimpressed by, or not interested in, the little events of daily living and pessimistic about the future.

Then, our two children began giving us grandchildren.  The first pregnancy progressed without me paying much attention.  I let the women in the family go through all the rituals and anticipations of our first grandchild.  My only active participation consisted of driving my wife back and forth to San Jose over the several days of a long and twice delayed labor.  Finally, though, little Jack was born and when he and his mother were wheeled from the delivery room into the hallway where we had gathered to await his arrival, I was struck by lightning.  Suddenly and unexpectedly I became a Grandpa.  I was surprised, but the conversion was immediate, and it was complete.

Surely, never had a cuter, more handsome, smarter or more talented child ever been born.  Whenever I started telling others about him, along with showing the requisite innumerable snapshots of him, my wife had to remind me that I was doing to others what I had always complained about when others showed me theirs.

Five more grandchildren followed, spaced more or less a year apart, alternating between our children, so we now have a total of six.  This, of course, denies any other child, in the entire world, the ability to achieve a ranking of better than seventh in any category.

I am constantly surprised at the differences between them despite the fact that they are from the same parents and are being raised in the same environments.  Jack, now nearly 12, is quickly turning into a teenager on the road to becoming a man; iliana is 10, a tall, beautiful, loving girl doing well in school; Nick, 9 is independent, wanting to do everything for himself; Olivia, 8, is a bubbly, happy child and our fashionista; Zachary, 6, is overflowing with energy and playfulness; the last, Gabriella Grace, or GG, is 2 years old and busy learning and growing too fast. They all live within a few miles of us so we get a lot of interaction.

They are a joy to be around and I am thankful for the gifts they give me.  Like seeing the world anew through their eyes; for showing me how important the little things are; for their laughing at my stale jokes or corny antics, and being able to share their joy over the smallest of events like an unplanned stop for frozen yogurt.  So, my best gift ever is not a gift you unwrap, but one you watch unfold, as those precious children grow, learn, teach and amuse this old man.