This is what I have seen

It has been at least six months since I wrote the ‘Lydia Aello’ thing, it was a way of tying a few things together, to see how they looked on paper and screen. It is a good time to add something to the business of experiencing whatever it was that I experienced.

All my bridges were burning, there was no way out of this horrible mess that my life had become, death was my only option. I had gone over my situation repeatedly, had burned out a number of therapists in attempts to find a solution to the depression and anxiety that destroyed all that I might have been. I truly believed that I was going to use the setup I had made, that I would no longer be alive in fifteen minutes, no hope was left unturned.

It was the absolute belief that nothing I held important was useful, no cavalry troop was going to ride in from off stage at the last minute; no smooth, moist thighs were going to open as a safe harbor; that is when I began to sense something else, I now call it ‘Presence’ even though it was and is not a thing, a presence. It is more like a verb than a noun, and it has no character other than it was through me, about me, it was me and more than me, I would never be alone again.

In the months and years to follow I went through James’ Varieties of Religious Experience, fought my way through a number of Tillich’s books, listed myself at the University of Wales, Lampeter where religious experiences can be registered. I have come to believe that I had what those others have had over the millenia, and it has led me to a few notions:

Jesus couldn’t have experienced the ultimate transcendence if he had not been brought to death by the Romans, Jesus the man teaching what all men can know.

That the guy who stood on the dessert and said ‘God is God’ pretty much said it all, and I empathize with his experience.

That people who have spiritual knowledge did not all stop two thousand years ago, there is no reason to think that there is less opportunity to know the divine than there was in Palestine back then, no reason at all.

That it is the goal of everyone to have this knowledge, whether that goal is expressed or kept hidden, there is intuitive knowledge of what it is.

I will post this as is, even though I know its inadequacy, know that what was experienced can never be portrayed accurately and fully: not by Bach, Jackson Pollock or Jesus, but we feel the need to try.

Saying goodbye gently

It was a good thing to do on the last day of the year, visit Bert in the nursing home on the day when the year is wrapped. Bert is wrapping his last chapter, though his memory is lessens he is coming to terms with it.

The city is quiet on this first morning, a couple of inches of snow and the general holiday combine on this blue-gray morning, a quiet, gentle morning.

Bert has both colon and bone cancer, he might also have lung and heart problems, is incontinent; the specifics of his condition are off limits to me a rule that doesn’t concern me. There is a scale they use to measure the level of life, 100 is someone who walks around and takes care of business unaided, 0 is dead, Bert was at 30 a couple of months ago, he has slipped since then. I probably wasn’t supposed to be told that, but what the hell.

He asked for a drink of water, butI am not allowed to give him one; all Ted’s liquids have to be thickened, thickener is added to his cup of water to prevent it going down the wrong way and choking him. Another reminder of his situation.

I have been told that bone cancer can be painful, and I ask Bert each time if he is in pain, he never is. Whatever drugs he is on seem to take care of the pain without making him drunk; but he is dying.

He is dying, there will be a time when I won’t visit him, that time isn’t far away. We had a nice visit, he thanked me for coming, couldn’t remember my name or if I had visited previously, a benign smile, maybe it was the medication, maybe it was the natural process of coming to terms with saying goodbye.

Goodbye is a quiet activity, it is the moments after the visitor’s car has left, the time when everyone has gone and the cleaning up is begun.

I did tell Bert a joke that made him laugh: “Bert I have a confession to make to you, sometimes I feel as if I am a lesbian trapped in a man’s body.” He got the joke immediately, the nurse who was nearby didn’t, she seemed uncomfortable hearing it; a dying man had a laugh, she might welcome that instead of acting otherwise.

I have shut the work radio off, bought groceries for a couple of days, sorting and put away clothes, papers, the empty box from the new tv, books and memories; putting on the shelf all those things that are not being used today. Playing a male Welsh choir recording, remembering my father’s memory of hearing the miners on their way to work before dawn, coming home after sunset, singing as they came and went in the dark, Sunday was their day off, the day to see the sun.

Saying goodbye is a quiet and gentle thing, but it brings great sadness, I am very sad this morning, and know that out of this sadness will come joy, later on today.

Going about one’s business after the storm

The awe that comes with a good fall of snow has passed, walks  shoveled to the narrowest that allows for one-lane walking, cars  strained by repeated starts at low temperatures and by the physical assault of hitting  drifts and scraping underneath; but we need to go to work, need groceries, need to get out of these, now too small, homes, to just get out and walk around.  People on the street more likely to give a nod on the days afterwards.

Last night I attended, as a volunteer, the seasonal dinner and remembrance service  put on for kids who have lost someone, and for those who remain.  Mothers straining to hold together a rambunctious family, to hold themselves together; fathers doing what I had to do, searching for what needs to be done next, to play a role for which there was no expectation.   The whole evening is part of a schedule that allows people, of all ages & situations, to work through their grief, the natural progression that requires only that it be allowed to work.  What I am trying to say is that every one of us knows inherently how to sail through the grief of a great loss, the process is delicate in that a person needs support of the gentlest kind, someone there but not controlling, someone who stands testimony that there is a way through this difficult passage.

The temperature will rise a few degrees above freezing later today, the sun shining in a clear sky; the effects of this sudden drop of snow onto us will disappear naturally; appointments will be kept, shelves stocked, restaurants filled, and everyone will have a storm story to tell.

It is easy to imagine that attending a bereavement holiday ceremony will be depressing, will bring you down, will be just the opposite of what Christmas, Hanukkah  and  New Year’s Eve is all about—-but it is not that way at all.

The only heirloom I have from my Scots grandparents is a book ‘Poetical  Works of Robert Burns’

AULD LANG SYNE

Should auld acquaintance be forgot,

And never brought to min’?

Should auld acquaintance be forgot,

And days o’ lang syne?

 

For auld lang syne, my dear,

For auld land syne,

We’ll tak’ a cup of kindness yet,

For auld lang syne!

 My long dead grandfather once told me that when he was young, in the time of Victoria, it was not unusual for a man to have to work on Christmas Day, but for New Year’s there would be at least two, perhaps three days to celebrate; sometimes it takes more than one day to say a proper goodbye.

For auld lang syne.

 

Spitting out another drop

I have just added another page to My Theology, another pebble thrown against the onslaught of designer spirituality.

It is not the fashion for someone to buy a shirt of pants that are chosen because they might reflect the nature of the owner, that is a risk that is shunned.  Far easier to have the designer choose, far better to read what someone who has had a spiritual experience has to say about that area that cannot be defined, where no words work, where uncertainty is constant, a space blazing with anxiety; instead of exercising courage it is far easier to pick a designer, call it the Bible or the Koran, it remains the description written by others; I use the singular ‘description’ because all exploration is of the same thing, the one thing, the area of truth that is inherent in us all, the recipe that has no words or image in and of itself.

And so I post this product of my own frustration, that I only glimpse the other, put my own puny description of my efforts.

One last grain of protest:

Look within, past each fear, name every anxiety, search for what you know is there.

The day after visiting a dying man

I visited Bert yesterday, he was anxious and making a lot of noise. I sat with him for about half an hour, trying to have him focus on the present for a few minutes, to confront his fears even though his mind is deteriorating; just doing what a friend can do, offer help, sit for a while, let him know that he is not alone.

Visiting him will not change what is happening to Bert, it is the way of things that his mind breaks down and away; I must never believe that what I am doing will change anything, it is just to be with someone as they go. This isn’t easy to do.

The day after visiting someone who is dying I react with feelings of emptiness, helplessness, I scramble to make sense of something that has no more sense than is living and dying. Visiting a dying person is an intense experience, the next day is the reaction to that intensity.

As I was about to leave, thirty minutes was all I could take, he stopped his anxious rambling to take my hand and thank me for coming, to apologize again for not being all that he wished, he hoped that I would come back again, his smile was genuine. For that smile and recognition I felt joy, and there you are.

I am playing Bach’s ‘Art of the Fugue’, Glenn Gould at the organ and piano; if Bach and Gould cannot fill a mind and life that feels empty nothing can, this is rich stuff.