THE END—er ah

THE END—just as the credits role at the end of a movie—or the last page of the book.  Some label this time of life the twilight years; the ‘sunset’ years; or ’the last quarter’ of the game hoping for an ‘overtime’ or two if we stick with the football analogy and you are reasonably healthy. 

My mind was wandering this morning. Wondering how I will close out this life.(This life, I wonder if I’ve had or will have more?)  I’ve not solved all the worlds problems as often is said after multiple coffees with good friends.  I am far from solving my own stuff often feeling my battles with my own humanity are no easier than they’ve ever been.  My ‘medicators’—those thoughts, those things I turn to for escape from my anxieties, my exhaustion, my boredom are as prevalent as ever.  Should I even call these diversions ‘addictions’? I wonder about progress—asking myself at my lower points, have I made any real progress?  

My name, Michael, means ‘who is like God’.  What a claim—a joke.  It feels almost blasphemous to be called by such a name—almost to the point of embarrassment.  Then my middle name, David, means ‘beloved’— a bit easier to swallow.  Nan Merrill (Psalms for Praying: A Invitation to Wholeness) has reminded me for years that God is my beloved and feels that way for all of us—not just we Davids.  

Even though I am a cradle Christian—born into church as an infant, I have always been a seeker—that one who questions, who wonders (wanders), who doubts.  All this time there has been something inside egging me on.  I have been like the flowers I’ve tended as they turn their faces toward to sun.  Believe me, I am not claiming an ounce of holiness here. Yet it has been a sense, a guidance beam beneath all of life. At times I have more wholeheartedly followed its direction.  At others, I’ve almost resented it telling God to just back off and let me alone.  He never did.  

I do wonder where it goes from here.  All the reading, education, my career—all the church life really means nothing (ok, not totally nothing).  Humanity forever has done the same wondering, the same wandering.  Mankind has talked about what this sense within them is. They have ‘understood’ it as something beyond them—often ‘up’ there since we were told heaven was up.  Not sure about that now either.  We Christians have The Big Book, a collection of stories from the ages.  Jews and Muslims share the same text.  We’ve been told that these writings were inspired by God ‘him’self.  My belief now—God is all that is masculine and all that is feminine together, with no pronoun for such.   I believe that at least a few of the other writers I’ve read over my lifetime were inspired too.  In the context of our own day, in the world we are most familiar with, these more recent writers speak of this sense within themselves—and when they do, a small voice within me quietly says, this is right, what they say is the truth, the way it is. 

On a building along the river walk in San Antonio. An element of the Day of the Dead, Nov 1-2. At first glance The Day of the Dead creeped me out but as I’ve come to understand it, I prefer celebrating it rather than the day before, Halloween.

As one elder has said, it is all fingers pointing toward the moon—even the Bible.  We are not to worship the book, yet many do.  It is the One it speaks of, the One all the stories are about.  Yet all those chapters, all the books ever written are the writers take on how it is, is their interpretation, how they see it—or how it was revealed to them—their interpretation of inspiration. Some just do not see that.  Yet I do believe in inspiration—that continues to this day.  I have felt it myself at times.  On occasion what I have written has felt as if I channeled it.  I was a conduit —not the source.  

So as my mind wanders today, frustrated that my wants, my lusts with all the trails those feelings lead down—cling like velcro. The Buddha said that desire is the source of all suffering. I’m still chewing on that one.  I know that we all share this head space, these thoughts and feelings.  It is the nature of the intersection of the timbers of these crosses we wear around our necks.  One timber pointing upward to ‘heaven’.  The other timber horizontal in both directions—to others, to all the creation has come to be.  At that intersection we live in the already, and the not yet.  And I find I am weary—and some days worn.  

I don’t need to read another book.  I don’t need more preaching (my apologies pastor Chris-I still love you and listen to what you say), or more Sunday school, or more hours in the Scriptures.  I just need some quiet enabling to hear that same voice that has always sought the Son; that has always sought me.  Oh, I will still read every morning because I need to be reminded of what I believe.  It is not that I forget it—well maybe for the moment. Life and its realities take over during my days. Rohr coaches us to forgive reality. Agreed, but a tough one for a dyed in the wool romantic dreamer like me who knows how it SHOULD be.  The noise and chaos of our current days is deafening, drowning out the source of all Being. 

I don’t want a monastery, to be a monk. Maybe I just needed to whine for a moment.  To be a disciple is to learn—and I am a slow learner.  All the realities of this life, the evil, the disasters I see daily drive me back to the Beloved.  Keep me seeking more closeness. Looking for that safe harbor we’ve sung about for ages—the cleft of the Rock.  

So Maybe, just maybe in some slight way you are like God, Michael—in truth, we all are.  You too are beloved, maybe not a David.  You are loved whatever moniker you wear. There is a Beloved, a lover—a divine romance. 

Rest there with me.