Beyond what is - is nothing. This was an odd experience. I had just gone to bed. This is a time of the day - even though it is usually quite short - that my imagination soars. I don't always like that experience and it is quite hard to turn it off once it starts turning out ideas and images. Often, this is a time in which I figure out a problem or have an idea that seems to bring a potential resolution to the direction of a storyline. At other times, I come to some kind of decision of what I must do. I have even resolved an issue within a sermon on which I have been working. Unfortunately, there are those nights when I think I am going to remember what came to mind - but alas, by morning, there is quite nothing. At other times, I wake in the morning and go directly to some paper and write myself a note. If I am really struck by my pre-sleep thoughts, I may even leave bed quickly and write something down. I should keep a bedside journal but I wonder if I would cut short my flow of thought if I was to get up and write down and idea that was not yet complete.
I say all this because while I was on vacation I considered nothingness. Yes, right there in bed after a full day that should have put me right to sleep. I realized that there was nothing to consider - how can one consider something that is not and will not be!? It all started with the internal question: what if I did not wake up - what if I died during the night? My first thought was - well, nothing. I simply would not be anymore - I would be an inanimate object. To my wife and to my friends and enemies I would be a collection of memories. Yet, their memories would mean nothing to me as I would be nothing - gone - dead. In these bits of pre-dream ramblings, I let go of an after life - no heaven and no hell. No rewards - No punishments. No cosmic party. Just nothingness - the end.
I suppose I was set off in this direction because of a book I have written just recently. It is fiction. It is in a diary format that records my first year after I came to the realization that I - at age 64 - can fly. I use the expression go up. The connection to my bedtime mental wanderings has to do with one of the abilities that goes along with being able to go up. I have no super powers - but I am able to lift people and take them with me. As long as someone is holding on to me or I am embracing someone who is within reach of me - I can take them all up without it being a burden at all. I test that ability regularly in an attempt to find a limit. None so far. But, if I try to lift an inanimate object - a stone, a bike, a basket - I can only lift something that my normal everyday - bad-back body - can handle. The people around me - folks that are alive - shit, we're flying baby.
Nothingness comes into play as I toyed with the notion of something being inanimate. In the book I don't try to lift any animals because I don't need to be coated in animal poop nor do I want to frighten a dog or a cow to death. But there is an incident when I attempt to rescue two homeless people who have jumped into a rain swollen creek near our home. I was able to latch onto the woman, pull her out of the water, and take her back up to the bridge and her friends. But then, I go back to find the man. I see him caught up on a thick branch near the shore - his face in the water. I attempt to move him - he is too heavy. I try to take him up - no way. I look more closely at him - he is dead. He has become an inanimate object that is beyond the weight I can lift - or even pull. Nothing at all.
I consider my ability to lift people to be organic. It is as though we are connected - we are able to interact - we are alive and part of something more than simply being individual people. I suppose I see that ability as being a part of being truly human - alive (though I haven't tested animals yet). This is not great notion. Rather, my book of fiction has created a living conundrum for me. There is nothing to come beyond who I am and the life that is available to me everyday. Plans for tomorrow are great and they are fun to anticipate - but right now, how am I alive - how am I alive with others. While I was in my pre-sleep mental wanderings, I found myself to be placed into moments of deep peacefulness. It was - I thought - the way I need to be even during the day. The last time I thought about such stuff was prior to my heart surgery. I am the only family member - among those who have looked into it - who inherited the heart of my gramps - a bicuspid aortic valve. It did him in during the 1960's and near the age I was approaching. Though the surgeon told me it is a good surgery to have and I was in really good health, I had the feeling I was at the end - there would be no other side of surgery. Back then, I first thought of nothingness and realizing that I would not know the outcome if I did not make it to recovery. I thought I was about to enter nothingness - though I did not tell that to my wife or daughter at that time - that would turn the waiting room into a real sea of mourning or a grand celebration - who knows.
So, nothingness. Can you live with that? I am finding that I buy it more and more. I am finding that it is making the stories of the Scriptures come eternally alive for me. Resurrection is endlessly present. God's Reign is utterly available. The Spirit of God pulls at my life like the wind blowing at pentecost and the bringing of creation. Grace a way of life. Hell very present as part of the day. I know, this is no great insight - no profound new thought. But is has made me think of so many people - so many relationships - so many life concerns - so many ways to expand the life at hand - so many ways to actualize a life that considers the welfare of all. So rather than attempt to flee the notion of nothingness, I'm finding myself caught up in more and more moments of liveliness. The stories of Scripture now inform the quality of what it is to be human - humanity when its potential shows forth the wonder of what we are able to be together.
TRRR
anyone know a publisher who is interested in fiction - book two is already underway. :)
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