H.U.G. PEACE

Notes from Underground – 14   

LAST WORD 

I want to finish up my brief consideration of spiritual determiners. I feel that what I need is: 1) someone who shares my life and concerns, 2) a sense of purpose, 3) living deeply (getting everything I can out of what life hands me), 4) experiencing all these things here and now, not in some wish-fulfillment promise for the future. I once thought that religion or philosophy would help me accomplish these things. Now when I look around I see that it is writing that has.

It offers a way to process life, to communicate with others, to find new depth and, this is no small thing, it results in real satisfaction. I don’t mean getting published, I mean the act of writing itself. And, as a bonus it provides a testament that is always there to remind me should I falter that there is a way to truth and fulfillment (that may not mean imoortality but for my purposes it is just fine).  

I realize that this isn’t the grand, reaching spirituality I sought as a child, nor the enlightened vision my wife, Talia, enjoys. But it is me. It is something that is within my grasp, and ultimately that is enough. I am a happy, satisfied person who loves his family and his dogs and cats. Who llikes sitting at the computer during the day and reading late into the night. If there is more than that, fine. But it is enough. And one final thing I believe is that we have to be satisfied with “enough.”    

If you want to know who I am and what I believe, read what I write. 

- John

 

Notes from Underground – 13

 

Time for a little humor break.

 

GUY’S GUIDE TO THE BIBLE

 

God said, “Adam, I
Want you to do
Something for Me.”

Notes from Underground – 12

 

 

 

 SACRIFICE

It has been a while since my last posting, but I have been giving this some thought. Initially I was going to talk about the importance of sacrifice, but now I wonder. Don’t we do things because we want to, not because we feel compelled to follow someone else’s idea of what we should do? Take the commandments. If we didn’t have them would we not honor our parents? Would we kill each other any more or less than we do?      

I’ve just finished reading a self-published book a husband wrote about his wife who died of breast cancer only four years after their marriage. There are several good reasons for writing such a memorial memorial. First, for the author’s two year old daughter, who he worries “Might not remember her Mom, and if she did, it might only be the ‘sick’ Laura.” Second, it provides her husband with a bit of closure after having gone through a difficult time with his wife’s cancer and death. But there is also a good lesson here those of us who never knew this woman. The author’s memories are fresh and detailed. We, more fortunate, gloss over our lives and in the process lose those bits and pieces that make it special. This book got me thinking about my own life. How I also met my wife through “the personals,” our first date, our wedding, the joys and challenges we have faced. A quality I value (spiritual or not) is one of awareness. I want to focus in on life, not be lost is some theory or doctrine that claims to be more important but in reality is a substitute for our personal experience of the here and now. Too often the promise of religion is just that. I can understand if I were a slave or impoverished and starving with no hope of improvement, wanting to believe in a better after-life where every wish is fulfilled (or in the Buddhist tradition negating ourselves to what we feel), but I’m not. And even if it is painful don’t we want to know it for what it is?  I’m reminded of Henry David Thoreau. Here’s what he said in Walden in case you need to be reminded (I know I do once a year): 

I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not when I came to die, discover that I had not lived… For most men, it appears to me, are in a strange uncertainty about it,  whether it is of the devil or of God, and have somewhat hastily concluded that it is the chief end of man here to “glorify God and enjoy him forever.” Still we live meanly, like ants; though the fable tells us that we were long ago changed into men; like pygmies we fight with cranes; it is error upon error, and clout upon clout, and our best virtue has for its occasion a superfluous and evitable wretchedness. 

 

Be it life or death, we crave only reality. If we are really dying, let us hear the rattle in our throats and feel cold in the extremities; if we are alive, let us go about our business… Men esteem truth remote, in the outskirts of the system, behind the farthest star, before Adam and after the last man. In eternity there is indeed something true and sublime. But all these times and places and occasions are now and here. God himself culminates in the present moment, and will never be more divine in all the ages.

 

-       John Lehman

 

 

Notes from Underground – 11

 

 

 

 

 

                                                                           SPIRITUAL DETERMINERS      

     I’ve been taking Ibproprin for a soar nerve in my left leg. It helps with the pain and rather makes me feel, somehow, more mystical. Talia has called my attention to something concerning my last three or four entries. They all seem to indicated how the past has formed my values—they don’t speak to the present.

       I agree with her. Sometimes that has been a good thing. Years of Catholic school and sitting through Mass in Latin have made me very happy to put that behind me. It didn’t make much sense then, it makes even less now. My mixed experience with my first marriage left me a bit cynical, which is not good, though my ending up happier than I have ever been before in my life now gives me a hopefulness about everything that is good. The reality is, I need a spirituality that satisfies me today, not one that might have been appropriate for 30 or 40 years ago. And you can’t tell me that anyone who gives this any thought at all feels differently.

 

     So what is important to me now? One thing is being able to share this experience of living (both the good and the bad) with someone who will listen and do the same with me. I don’t want that to be some presence I imagine (God or Jesus or my dead sister) who is a projection of my own feelings. Talia and I are different and trying to tell her something, make her experience it as I did, forces me to make it clear to her but also clear to myself. Writing does that too, and here’s the weird thing. Through this process of sharing we are buying into our own lives in a more real way.

 

     Next, I need to believe in something, have some project I want to work on, build on a dream, be passionate about something. Perhaps that’s a product of my German heritage—who you are is what you do—but even if it is, I can’t escape it. I remember reading a book on entrepreneurship that identified four stages of a business: starting it, making it profitable, sustaining it, selling it or getting out. Each is important during all stages of its development and is why a business owner should hire people expert in each. Well I am the “starting it” guy, and as I approach old age that poses a bit of a problem in terms of my life.

 

     There are two other aspects of the present that weigh heavily. One of these is sacrifice. By that I mean sacrifices made for me and sacrifices I do or do not make for others. But that is a complex subject I want to save for next time.

 

     Meanwhile feel free to share your present and past determiners here. Just enter a comment below.

- John

 Notes from Underground – 10

 GHOSTS 

     I remember the strange day before my mother died. She was in a Chicago hospital and I was in Wisconsin. My older brother and sister who had spent countless evenings and weekends with her reported by phone that she seemed to be doing OK. They said they were both taking the weekend off to be with their families before summer was over, but if I was coming down to visit her, Saturday would be a great day.

 

     So I drove the four or five hours. My niece was just leaving as I arrived. Mom seemed fine. In fact at one point she said, jokingly, “Why don’t you get my clothes and let’s get out of here.”

 

     She asked about my wife and kids and how I was doing with my new advertising agency. there didn’t seem to be any urgency and I felt pleased to share the time with her—just the two of us. And then a strange thing happened.

 

     It was like something out of Dostoyevsky.

 

     She said to me, “I know it is just you and I here, but I see your dad (four or five years deceased) next to you and your brother and sister, Eddie and Lois and all their kids.”

 

     “Well, it’s me,” I replied, and added. “They’re all thinking of you, I’m sure.” And that, I thought, was the end of that as I said a casual good-bye several hours later.

 

     The next morning, back in Wisconsin, I got the call from my brother that Mom was dead. She had died in her sleep that night after I left.

 

     Rather than be upset, she was 89 after all, I was so happy we’d had that last meeting together, and also that I knew she felt her family, dead and alive, were gathered around her when it was time to go.

 

     When my father died there had been a big turnout for his wake, but even a few years later many of the people who had know my parents were dead themselves.

 

     But I think death is more than not being alone. It fulfills our need that things have a beginning, a middle and an end. We want that symmetry in our lives or believe something outside of ourselves posits that sense of purpose and fulfillment. Do we deserve that? Why not. And if we don’t get it here, let’s imagine we do (like my mother) or know that it waits for us after death.

 

     I look in the mirror and see my father in my face and body, as my great grandchildren will see me in their mirror. There is something in each of us that, despite death, lives on. And if physically why not in other ways too? Why not?

 

 

Notes from Underground – 9

 

 

MARRIAGE

 

     If having a child connects us to the past and future (to parents and eventually through grand children to life beyond our own) besides forcing us to live in the here and now of the present, doesn’t marriage do the same? I think there’s a significant difference, but it’s a subtle one and I don’t want to be misunderstood. Warning: this is not a particularly romantic view.

     Romance pulls us in, allows us to ignore potential conflicts and even satisfies our most optimistic dreams. But I think we are also drawn to someone who provides qualities we lack. An introverted male might like a more extroverted mate to satisfy the social interaction we all need. Or someone who is a problem solver might want a partner that provides surprise and spontaneity to make life fun, not just a challenge. At least that’s how we feel initially.

     Eventually, qualities that attracted us start to conflict with our opposite personality. That’s when the power struggle begins. Key to resolving this is to realize these opposing qualities (mirrored by our partner) actually exist within all of us, and what we need to do if we want lasting happiness is find some balance of them within ourselves. (I am presenting these as two opposing “goods,” but in the throes of battle—a divorce for example—the terms quickly are labeled “good” and “bad.” Is this the origin of “evil”? Possibly.)

     In any case it seems to me the spiritual qualities marriage represents are this outer and inner thing. Traditionally religion has been the Catholic Church with its external rituals and papal authority. The Reformation stressed a more personal approach to God. I have always had trouble with these “either or” alternatives. Even the Buddhist beliefs that negate the physical seem to deny a major element of the human condition.

     I love discerning a meaning for myself (the theme) in a book or short story about the lives of other fictional or nonfictional people. Sharing the external events of the day with Talia (my wife) and discovering our emotional reactions to them that clarify how we are both the same and different (and how we are going to learn to accept that). This is an active process, not one of accepting someone else’s interpretation. That is the difference between our great spiritual leaders, like Jesus, and the doctrinaire quality of the religions that have become attached to them. Be the spiritual leader of your own life, I believe. Anything less is death.

 

(photo by Cliff Lewis)

 

Notes from Underground – 8

BIRTH    

    

     The most meaningful event of my life was having my first child. I think it was Homer who observed, “The child is father to the man.” At the moment of that birth I became my fathers (and with our grandchildren we see a part of us that will live beyond what we will). I felt connected with the past and with the future in ways I only was figuratively before.    

     I vividly recall my son’s birth. I was in the service in Germany. My wife, Pat, had gone through Lamaze training and was well prepared for natural childbirth in the military hospital. That didn’t happen, and after many hours of labor Karl was born by Cesarean section. This was before the days husbands were allowed in the delivery room; but, incredibly,  when I went to the nursery a half hour later after visiting with my wife, my baby son was propping himself up on his elbows and seemed to be looking around. I went back to our little apartment 30 miles away and played my banjo until dawn. No wonder we all respond so emotionally to Christmas.    

     So what is spiritual in all of this? I think it is, going beyond ourselves. And if we can do this in one way why can’t we in other ways. Teachers, caregivers, even employers affect lives. We all help someone and we hope someone will help us. And, if a need is beyond human resources, why not personify a God and pray to Him for what we want? But it’s not just a concept of help and helping that I’m talking about. Rather it is the idea of the one and the many. The emphasis goes beyond the individual. And feeling a part of something greater is the result.  The celebration of Christ’s birth, is acknowledging a connectedness. And, in practical terms, that begins with the family we are born into. Baptism, the holidays, the figurative use of “community” when describing people gathering together for some purpose—all of these spring from that realization of “the other.” So why don’t animals have this? A good question. The answer: Maybe they do. 

Notes from Underground – 7    

  

  This may seem simplistic. But the question of “the other” becomes more complicated when we consider love and marriage (see the installment next week).  That complexity is part of our spirituality too.    

   

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

                                                     Projections 

 

      Do we see God as almighty, all-knowing, forgiving and eternal because He is, or is it because these are traits we, weak, confused, fallible mortals desperately want ourselves?

     So much of what we praise is what we don’t have, that it makes me suspicious that much of our truth is man-made. We dread extinction so we posit everlasting life. This journal exploring my own spirituality has been rather fragmented, but I’m wondering if I couldn’t learn more by looking specifically at those times in our lives when God, spirituality, even religion, seem to move to the forefront, examining each in an installment and then trying to discover some connections they share.

     What comes immediately to mind are instances of joy: weddings, baptisms, graduations. Then there are times of sorrow or disappointment— when a family member dies, we lose a job and experience physical or psychological sickness. And what of those instances of fear? We fear losing our lives, fear we will or will not uncover who we are, fear betrayal, fear we will prove insignificant, fear loneliness and, of course, we fear being forgotten.

     Are there also times of anger and hate when we turn to God? Many of the wars fought throughout human history were for religious reasons, but as individuals, I don’t think we often call on a spiritual power to hurt another (at least not since the days of Voodoo). That’s interesting, isn’t it? We call to a power outside for blessings but take full responsibility, ourselves, for damning another. Why?

     To explore each of these instances, bear with me as I examine examples of them from my own life. This is limiting, but these are the only things I really know firsthand. If the truth can be discovered, I do believe it needs to be based on our own experiences (though may be expanded upon or analyzed by outside experts). But I would also appreciate hearing whether your experiences and conclusions agree or disagree with mine.  

     I remember a social worker in Vietnam from Haiti. His tent-mate would laugh about how his friend was an intellectual, atheist during the day, but the minute there were gun bursts in the night, Marengold would have his head under the pillow praying out loud to God to be spared. Now I wonder which is real: the tranquility of day or the fear of night?  And how is a relationship to God intertwined with both?

 

 

Notes from Underground - 6

 

 

ANSWERED PRAYERS

 

     If you follow these entries at all you will be shocked by this one. I am and it happened fifty years ago.

     As I’ve mentioned I attended an all-boys Jesuit school. There were mixers after the basketball games but the few girls who attended had their attention dominated by cooler upperclassmen. By sophomore year I had no chance of seeing a girl, much less talking to one. To make things worse, my parents whisked me off each summer to a cottage they had in Michigan, so I was out of sync even with the guys my own age.

     That’s when I turned to God.

     I prayed show me a sign, and I mean now. Here’s what I want. First, a record by Nervous Norvous called “Transfusion.” This bloody mess was banned from most radio stations. My dad had a record player for 45’s, but his collection of music included Wayne King, The Sons of the Pioneers and Nat King Cole (an an occasional Stan Freeberg comedy record, such as “Hello Mother, Hello Father.” No one else ever thought of buying a record. And though some of my friends were into Elvis and Frankie Avalon, my parents never thought I was remotely interested in pop music. This was putting God to the test.

     But there was a second part. After I got the record, I wanted Him to send me a girl friend.

     Here’s where this becomes surreal. A month or so after this challenge to God on the mountain top, my brother-in-law, shows up from Chicago (my sister and her kids had been staying that August) with, he told everyone, ta, da, “a record you just got to hear.”

     It was “Transfusion” by Nervous Norvous. Then, a week later, my good-looking buddy from Detroit, Larry Proventure, and I walked a couple miles around the bay to Hennis Park (a small county park between town and where my folk’s cottage and Larry’s parents motel rooms were). There were two girls walking ahead of us on one of the trails, then a little later the two girls were behind us on another trail. The four of us laughed about it over on the big swing in the playground area. One of them had dark hair, was outgoing, and a little overweight. But the other, Judy, had short blond hair, dark rimmed glasses, and was a knock-out.

     I obviously assumed it would be Judy and Larry and John and the comic side-kick. But, no. Judy sat next to me. She asked me questions. I couldn’t believe this. As I found out later from her friend, Maureen, Judy had just recently needed to start wearing glasses, and she was self-conscious about how the cooler kids would react to her. Apparently, I was not a threat. The four of us met every day over at the park and had innocent fun. Then school began, Larry had to return to Detroit and I went back to Chicago. Judy and I did write for a couple weeks, but that ended as she was quickly absorbed back into her high school world.

     So why is this shocking. Everyone has a brother-in-law that does things the family doesn’t understand. And for a sixteen-year-old boy to meet a fifteen-year-old girl was not that unusual, even if the guy was a little nerdy. What’s shocking is that I had asked for what I thought was the impossible. And I had received it. But rather than thank God or wonder at his miracle, I was pretty indifferent to the whole thing. I still am amazed at this today.

     Possibly we don’t feel we want to have to ask for what we want, and even when we get it are a little resentful that it was someone else’s generosity (God, a parent, a mentor, a friend) that was responsible. A few years later the Rolling Stones would sing, “You don’t always get what you want,” but I knew you don’t always want what you get, or something like that. In any case, it was another six years before I had a girlfriend again.

 

(the photo above is by my friend Cliff Lewis)

 

 

 

Notes from Underground – 5

 

TRAPS

 

It may seem negative to define something by what it is not. Think about “nonfiction.” Are we that fiction centered that this is the best we can come up with for reality? Well, speaking about nonfiction, I just reviewed a book called “The Flow of Time and Money.” One chapter that was interesting, asks why the middle class struggles with money so much. An answer is the various traps we fall into cleverly camouflaged with tasty-looking bate, such as, “borrow and spend,” “save and spend,” “deferred spending, “expense-generating possessions.”  The author’s advice if you are going to become wealthy, rather than just look wealthy—is to live below your means. It got me wondering what are the spiritual equivalents of these financial traps.

 

In my Catholic upbringing “deferred spending” would have meant denying yourself during this life on earth. The reward, bigger and better than you can imagine, will come in the next life. Perhaps, but this is the same psychology adopted by dictators: suffer now; you will be better for it after you die. To me that justifies poverty, oppression and a host of other instances where the few misuse the many. But the weird thing is that throughout history this has worked. Common people admire the royal family, Movie fans are happy to read about the life of Brad and Angelina (who cares if their own are miserable). Somehow I can’t accept this deferred-reward plan. I want something that makes a difference in my life, right here, right now. What if that doesn’t exist? But I think there are enough other indications to bet it does. I like writing poetry, and that has an immediate benefit to put me more in touch with my life. Family, particularly kids, do the same thing. Why would spirituality do anything less?

 

“Borrow and spend”—credit cards, and “save and spend”—where if we reach a certain amount in our savings account we go out and get a big TV or take a vacation, seem similar in many ways. Both tie our well being to material things that give us an image of success. Our capitalist culture of retail spending offers traps every time we turn around, and even justifies them in terms of jobs or progress or happiness (watch how ads and commercials stage this instant gratification). I do believe we were created to be happy; we just need to be careful how we define that. (By the way, here’s an interesting fact. Do you know who watches commercials on TV? The largest percent is people who already own the product. The commercial is telling them how to be happy with their $60,000 car.)

 

I want something that is the equivalent of “passive income.” Spirituality that generates more spirituality not demands more and more of its possessors. And I want those dividends here and now. Maybe it’s like experiencing great classical music at a concert. You don’t say, “This is going to make a better person of me some day?” or “I need a gigantic CD collection of this stuff before I feel good.” No, this is no trap to get you to except something or do something. You experience its power and beauty, and know you are experiencing it. You touch eternity. That’s the kind of spirituality I want.

 

—John

 

Notes from Underground – 4

FIRST STEP

     Following the celebration of my parent’s 50^th anniversary in Chicago, my first wife and I joined them at their summer cottage in Menomonee, Michigan. One night after a few cocktails my mother confronted me about why we had not had our second child baptized as a Catholic. I said that I was not a practicing Catholic anymore and thought to do a baptism would be hypocritical. My mother was enraged. She talked about my Catholic education, and I interrupted her when she got to my college (the University of Notre Dame) to explain that what I had learned at a Catholic university was to examine my life and live according to what I felt was true—the old Socratic thing about, “the unexamined life not being worth living.” She said, “Well then you are no son of mine.” and left the room. A little later, my dad, who was in the very early stages of Alzheimer’s said to my wife and me, that my mom had been under some strain because of the anniversary, but maybe we had better leave. He had tears in his eyes when he added, “I don’t care what you believe, even if you are Buddhists (we were Unitarians), I still love you just the same.”

     I never forgot his words. This man who was not part of any religion expressed the kind of love Christians and non-Christians profess we should feel about each other. My mother, on the other hand, a card-carrying Catholic couldn’t accept her son because he was following what he thought was the truth. Well I didn’t accept what she was saying that evening either and called her, as I always did, every other week. Eventually our relationship was back to what it had been. Not that either of us ever brought up the baptism again. Several years later, my older sister told me, “Mom said she had made a terrible mistake with regard to you that summer.” I always appreciated the fact that Lois confided this to me. Mine was not a family who talked openly about deeper things.

     So what does it mean? I have nothing against Catholics, but in the case of my family, religion seemed to be a way of not having to face up to our responsibilities. There were other people to make the rules, which you could follow or confess to not following. There were priests who were holy for you, and when kids asked questions, catechisms to send them to for answers they could memorize. The absence of all those things was a little scary too. The Unitarian Church my wife and I belonged to seemed somewhat rudderless and many of its members were people who sought religion—because that is what they grew up with—but didn’t necessarily have any beliefs. And actually I did look into Buddhism, but there is something about its negation of thought and individuality that doesn’t fit me personally, though I did base my sales and marketing book (Everything Is Changing) on its many excellent principles.

     I remember an environmentalist back in Michigan, Wint Dahlstrom, who used to say, just because we can’t provide answers to the conglomerates about pollution, doesn’t mean we have to accept their lack of concern. Our responsibility is to look and speak-out about the problem…that is the first step toward an eventual solution. I don’t know what to believe, but taking an open-eyed look at what is not working for me spiritually, seems a first step to finding what I do need.

 

—John

 

 

 

Notes from Underground – 3

 

QUESTIONS

 

     Upon reading my first little piece, my wife asked if other events—such as my marriage and the births of my children—weren’t indications of some joyous plan, at least as much as patterns of sun on a carpet. The answer, and I don’t have many answers, is no. These are things that have tremendous meaning for me, and at the time made me feel more alive than I had ever felt, but what I meant by a spiritual experience is something that brings me out of myself and makes me aware of something beyond my own little world.

     Yesterday I was early for a meeting and so drinking from a thermos of coffee sitting in my car reading “Conscious Evolution” in a high school parking lot. It was Saturday and there was not anything going on. All of a sudden, POW, a car backed into me, sending the book, coffee and my narrow concentration to the wind. Fortunately, there was no damage, and after the woman and I exchanged information I was able to return to what I had been doing. No, that’s not quite right. I had been jolted and now could think of nothing else. In a way that’s the kind of revelation I have always associated with a spiritual change. The sky opening and lightning striking St. Augustine from his horse. Love that leads up to marriage, or pregnancy resulting in the birth of a beautiful child, may ultimately be more life changing, but at the time they are gradual. A welcome progression of welcome things.

     But I may be wrong.

     Barbara Marx Hubbard takes a look at evolution and sees a choice. (Traditionally “choice” and “evolution” are somewhat mutually exclusive). Lamark – who I believe pre-dated Darwin – saw evolution headed in a direction. In other words, giraffes wanted longer necks to pick fruit from the top of trees other animals couldn’t reach, and they eventually got them. Darwin, on the other hand, saw evolution as something that happened without intent (there was always variety within a species, and giraffes with longer necks survived when those with short necks did not if there was only a dwindling amount of fruit.) Karl Marx liked the Lamark model for his political theories (thesis, antithesis, synthesis). It was something the Communist regime later felt they were striving for. Ultimately scientists sided with Darwin, not because his theory was more true (who knew) but because it was simpler and seemed to explain what often seemed to be arbitrary results of a species adaptation to its surroundings.

     Just as it was tempting for observes on earth to once think the planets revolved around them, so it is for humans to think we are somehow the culmination of all change.

That was certainly the view of man during the Renaissance and look at the great literature and art that produced.

     As a young man I was more in the Darwin camp—not knowing what life would throw at me, wanting to survive and succeed. Now, I don’t know. Looking back, it is comforting to think this was all according to some plan, with some purpose. It certainly gives solace to old age. And I don’t think there is anything wrong with that.

—John

 

Notes from Underground – 2

 

STORY

 

“God created humans, because He likes stories,” or so the saying goes. And I think it is possible to group religions in terms of beginning, middle and end. Fundamentalists are pre-occupied with the beginning, the “here and now” and the “you are whatever you think you are” groups emphasize middle and a whole lot of sects Christian and non-Christian are counting on that day of judgment and final reward—the end. But for me the curious appeal of stories reveals something more.

 

What would it be like if you could program your dreams before you went to sleep each night?  What sort of plots would you choose?  What sort of stories?  In what sort of situations would you want to find yourself?  You might ask yourself, “What would I really enjoy?  Sex?  Romance?  Adventure?”  At first many of your dreams would be wish fulfillment.  You’d begin with subjects you feel comfortable with, then after awhile you might try some you are curious about which are less safe.  Occasionally you might even want to scare yourself.  Why shouldn’t you?  We do program our dreams, it’s just that we do this unconsciously, rather than consciously. And the same thing is true about programming our lives. We work through the issues we have to in our dreams. And, when we are up to it we work through them in real life.

 

So what does that have to do with my spiritual journey? It’s just that we may want, or need things other than what we think we want or need. Explore possibilities adds texture and richness to our lives. I’m not saying we would seek out pain and frustration, but perhaps they are part of our story. Are we responsible for that or is God? Well it is also a little like the relationship between the author and the reader. The story belongs to both. The feelings and emotions a reader brings to a book say a lot about who he or she is. The plot of the story draws these out.  An author can read his own book, it’s true, but the real joy is partnering with an audience.

 

With regard to endings I rather like a poem by Billy Collins in which everyone gets exactly what he or she imagines is in store for them. Some are being up a funnel of flashing colors into a zone of light, others stand naked before a forbidding judge with a golden ladder on one side and a coal chute on the other. Some are part of a celestial choir, while others are approaching the apartment of the female God, a woman in her forties with short wiry hair and glasses hanging from her neck by a string. There are even those squeezing into the bodies of eagles and leopards.

 

I envision myself lying on my back in a coffin wishing I could awake in the morning and stand at the window to examine snow on the branches of winter trees.

 

—John

 

 

 

Notes from Underground – 1

 

Epiphany

 

In my 67 years of life I have had one spiritual experience. Before I tell you about it let me explain why I haven’t had more.

 

I spent much of my early life in Catholic schools. My mother was Catholic and there was little choice in terms of my education. My father was an agnostic (he sort of believed in God, but didn’t think we could know Him in any direct way). Their marriage (both were from a small town in Michigan and had left to go to work in Chicago) had meant that she would decide where the children went to school, he would pay for it, and the matter never had to be discussed again. So I daydreamed away my mornings of grade school in Church or through catechism class. When I left home for the army I had a chance to drop all the religious pretense, and I did. But that meant taking responsibility for my own actions. There was no longer the promise of some distant reward or punishment to compensate for doing what I considered the right thing.

 

Not that there weren’t challenges. I am convinced it is easier to raise children having some sort of righteous authority on your side (“God will be angry if you don’t take a nap”). Try reasoning with a two year old; or spend an hour at a Unitarian service where kids are running free. And later as an adult, I felt something was missing in my life, too—but that was easily satisfied in another way.

 

I have always loved reading. Novels, short stories, poems. And in the subtlety and beauty of many great writers’ work, there is redemption. Joyce called this an “epiphany,” and when I began to write my own poems and stories, my excitement about literature grew even stronger. That has sustained me ever since. I am impressed by my wife, who has a different spiritual orientation than I do, but, despite that, it has been easy for me to fall back on the model of my parents: the man makes money and the woman is the one concerned with spiritual things. Not that that was ever satisfactory. It wasn’t for them, it isn’t for me.

 

Then three years ago on a winter afternoon, I was walking up the stairs inside a small office building. At the top of the stairway I was struck with the beauty of how a beam of sunlight shining through the window interacted with the intricate pattern of the carpet on the floor. It was like a wonderful piece of op-art that no one would ever see (except me, who just happened upon it). I was overwhelmed by this example of the intricate beauty of a universe, which exists often despite man’s efforts).  I wondered at this. It wasn’t the magnitude or Truth of what I saw but something more rich, though difficult to put my finger on in terms of traditional “religious” labels.

 

This is the greatest time of my life, and this blog is an opportunity (for me and for others) to explore what is truly meaningful. I know it will be a personal journey to try to understand myself better. I hope it will also be something that, perhaps, will shed some light on your personal journey as well.

 

—John