I was born in July, 1945. I’m four months away from 78 years old and DEATH is stalking me. I have numerous chronic pains in my architecture. My right ankle, in particular, is damaged from an old injury and I have an old man limp. I suppose I’ll have to start shopping for a cane before long. But more important than my deteriorating architecture are the deteriorating files in my executive office, my brain. My memory has mysteriously taken some hard hits recently. A lot of the old ink, and recently even some of the new ink, is fading and becoming unreadable. So seeing death over my shoulder is no surprise. I’m not a religious person in the traditional sense. For me the belief in an “afterlife” that’s either a playground full of angels or a dungeon full of sadistic demons dressed in studded black leather is a belief similar to the one that the world is flat. In my lifetime we’ve had a look of the earth from space and it didn’t appear to be flat. But death? All we really know is that our brain, the organic computer that animates our self-awareness, ceases to function when we die. So what is death? Is it a door, a return to something holy, or is it just a full stop, poof, gone? Gratefully I don’t fear it. But I do have some questions. Does the universe have some kind of underlying self-awareness? Are we just bubbles of that soul of the universe? In death does our individual self-awareness melt back into some universal underlying self-awareness? And those questions beg the question, “Is something like universal underlying self-awareness the soul of the universe?” And is that what we call God? …. I think my head is going to explode.
These questions just leave me full of awe and awe is, arguably, the most precious and holy of emotions! Dr. Paul Pearsall, a neuropsychologist, defined “awe” as an “overwhelming and bewildering sense of connection with a startling universe that is usually far beyond the narrow band of our consciousness.” And that is what I feel I am touching these days when I look over my shoulder and see death quietly in step behind me. The “what is?” of death is far beyond the narrow band of my consciousness.
Anyway, I’ve tried not to do harm most of my life but honestly, in my narcissism and naivete, I’ve often failed. But I have loved and I have forgiven. Most difficult of all I have forgiven myself…., uh,.. well…., OK, I’m still working on that. But I understand that the hurts I have caused were born from ignorance and ignorance gives birth to arrogance, anger, envy and hate. And yet as those feelings have danced with pain in my heart I have stumbled upon truth. Truth gives birth to humility and humility gives birth to forgiveness, kindness, love and peace.
So here I am, an old man, a grateful old man, and I’m pretty much at peace these days. Death is stalking me but I’m not afraid. A heavenly amusement park, a consolidation of data before another incarnation, or just an off switch? I don’t care. Truly! I’m just going to continue the stroll and enjoy all y’alls company while I’m here.
BE HERE NOW my dear brothers and sisters.