Thursday, December 2, 2010

If these are my last words

"You shall be used. The Divine Force is never less. I only need the instruments for me to use. To know that would remake the world." Two Speakers

If these are my last words, and I'm in a hospital dying of something, but I haven't lost my conversational powers, and my mom was there, being there because that's what she does, she's there for her family, I'd tell her my one regret in life was being separated from God for so long.
And I'd try not make it out to be her fault because I'm sure she'd take it the wrong way and get upset and defensive and cry a lot and then write my comments off as some delusion of mine, but that's really how I feel.

I had never been content in life until the moment I gave up on my atheism, renounced all vestiges of my agnosticism, and accepted the full and complete and benevolent role of God in my life. All my fights; all my anxiety; all my willfullness; my false dreams; my lust; my greed; my anger; my expert skepticism--all of that came from my denial of God's will.

By God, I mean what would be best be described as the Higher Power or Great Spirit because of course I'm not talking about Yahweh in the Old Testament, the genocidal deity willing to snuff out humanity with a flood. And though I completely love and admire Jesus for so many things, I don't mean only Jesus, because he's new on the scene--only 2k years of exemplification--and the Divine Fellow's name has been misused so much as to throw too many people, such as my mother, off the scent of God's magic.

What I mean is that magical, mystical, ineffable presence in all things, channeled through the minds of all sentient beings, working through the action of every atom and every molecule, every object and every animal, every person and every family, every state and every nation, working, working ,working all the time, following the same patterns, which we, the poor measly, egocentric human race then misinterpret for our own private, self-centered mistaken ways.

But when we walk in God's light, when we hear the voice of God in all sounds, when we see the work of God in all things, when we apply the interpretative strategy that Jesus and Buddha and many other mystical prophets have directed us to follow throughout recorded human history, THEN we work with God, not against God. And, as his Holiness the Dhali Lhama points out in his book on Buddhist practice, we are "wisely self-centered" to do so.

When we work for others first, we make them happier, which then makes us happier. Every action to the contrary, which seeks to increase our pleasure without first adding to the pleasure of another, leads to the consequent anxiety to achieve more, to do more, to want more that haunts all the allegedly successful individuals of the world.

So when you leave my hospital room, as I lay dying, I would direct my mother or any other alleged agnostic to begin to count the blessings that pass her by as she proceeds home.

Do you see that I am in first-class state-of-the-art hospital? Do you see how many people you encounter here who have dedicated their professional lives to helping people? Do you see the store in the lobby dedicated to selling gifts to visitors who are trying to brighten the day of the suffering patients inside? Do you see the security guard helping someone in a wheel chair through the door? Do you see the cars, most of them purchased within the last 20 years, in this our wealthy nation parked in an orderly manner in the parking lot? Do you notice the driver who waits patiently for you to back your car out before he passes by? Do you notice the cars driving all the correct side of the road on the way home? Do you notice every stop light where no one beeps? Do you notice that most people are driving the same speed as you on the highway? Do you take in the beauty of Bass River when you cross it on a well-constructed bridge, the world flashing by you at 60 miles an hour? Do you note that if you take a left and another left off the ramp at Exit 11, within two miles you will be face to face with the breath-taking body of water known as Pleasant Bay, on which you have spent countless hours?

Can you stop there at Head of the Bay and think of how many sunny days, you and I and all your friends and family went around the buoys set up for racing from starts at that shack on the beach called Chatham Yacht Club?

Can you count each grain of sand as the work of God? Can you listen to the blowing wind and hear the voice of God? Can you look beyond each little detail and see the towering, all-encompassing blue sky?
And can you know that in all those things I will always be with you just as God always will be with you?

No comments: