Despair

If He bars against you all passages, He will show you a secret way, which no one knows.

- Rumi 

"When I despair," wrote Mahatma Gandhi, "I remember that all through history the way of truth and love has always won. There have been tyrants and murderers, and for a time, they can seem invincible, but in the end, they always fall. Think of it  --always."             

"Yeah, yeah, yeah," we mumble. "Easy for you to say, Barefoot Boy, when you're on the other side of despair. But, when you're up to your neck in the entrails of despair, it's not so easy to think hopeful thoughts. Any hopeful thoughts.                  

Despair doesn't just say things look bad; despair is pretty sure things'll stay that way. Despair is not just a case of sad; despair is sad on steroids. If despair sees a light at the end of a tunnel, despair is pretty sure it's an oncoming train.                 

Sorrow can bring you down. Despair can debilitate you. It can have you feeling not only hopeless, but powerless and incompetent to do anything to drag your sweet and sad butt into the hope department.                 

The bad news is that no one is immune from despair. The good news is that no one is immune from despair. We have all been there or and/or will be there soon enough again. Which makes a great case for compassion. And for - even reluctantly  - remembering that there have indeed been tyrants and murderers, and for a time, they can seem invincible; but in the end, they always fall. Always. Always.  

Despair is not - nor ever has been - the end of the road.  Compassion and love can - and do - open up whole new highways.  Always. All ways.

Bewilderment

Bewitched, bothered and bewildered am I.

 - Richard Rodgers & Lorenz Hart 

The world is a mind-boggling place. No doubt about it. Simply the fact that it exists at all can blow the cerebellum and fry the thalamus. But, to acknowledge the world as mind-boggling is just the beginning of boggledom.           

According to current research, for example, there are approximately 8.7 million species of life on this planet. Of these 8.7 million, only 1.2 million species have been catalogued which leaves some 86% of earth life and 91% of marine life still awaiting discovery or description.

That brain of yours which might well be getting boggled at this moment, is mind-boggling all by itself: How it stores some memories and ditches others. How it is even now trying to make heads or tails of these words, wondering if you can hold your hunger pains till dinner-time, trying to figure how you'll pay that VISA bill and still managing to ignite some excitement about the hot date you have scheduled this weekend.

Then, there's your body: everything from your ear hair to your toe jam is worthy of a good boggle.   You ability to swallow, digest, fart and poop without even thinking about it is near the top of the boggle list.

Then there are relationships - lover, friend, family, co-workers, pet. Mind-boggling, all.   And government? Mindless-boggling, perhaps. Then there's literature and Irish dancing, space capsules and on-line dating, Lady Gaga, Mona Lisa and Beethoven's 9th.  

A T-shirt might read: If you're not bewildered, you're not paying attention. Perhaps bewilderment is all there is. But rather than it throwing you into confusion and despair, if treated rightly, bewilderment just might lead you into the cathedral of jaw-dropping awe. And there's nothing a little awe and wonder to add the "worth" to the "while" of this life

That's How the Light Gets In

Ring the bells that still can ring. 

Forget your perfect offering. 

There is a crack in everything. 

That's how the light gets in.

- Leonard Cohen

One way or another, of course, everything falls apart. Trees, rocks, clouds, aardvarks, whales, turtles, tambourines, tadpoles, telephones, tacos and tufted tit-mice. Not a one can hold it together forever. Like wise with ice caps, ocean floors, continents and (sooner or later) Los Angeles. Every one and everything is subject to falling apart.

Of course, no life (including you and me) would even exist if it weren't for the fact that cells fall apart (call it, "divide," if you will). And most astronomers are pretty clear that our entire universe is busy falling further and further apart. Even married couples begin their life of love together with the words, "Till death do us part."  

So, with everything else in creation falling apart, why does it flip us out when our lives follow suit? Why do we freak out when our lives come apart at the seams? When everything nailed down comes loose?

Maybe it's because it disturbs our sense of order. Maybe it's because we sadly realize (once again) that we're not in control. Maybe it's because we have come to imagine that our lives have somehow risen above everything else; that we are not subject to the same rules. Or maybe we lack the trust that somehow things will, one way or another, reform and reorganize themselves into something new.             

Whatever it is, we don't like it. None of us do. And so we run around with rolls of mental and emotional duct tape, trying desperately to stick it all back together and keep things as they were. Of course, it doesn't work. It never works - not for long anyway. And eventually, we are left holding the pieces.                  

It is interesting, however, that as our universe continues to fly further and further apart, astronomers don't seem to be worried. They rather describe the phenomenon as "expanding."

When Life Ain't Fair

Isaiah 55: 6-9

My thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways my ways.

"Life is not fair," wrote Bill Gates. "Get used to it."  

Yeah, yeah, easy for you to say, Mr. Billionaire Bill. Unfairness might not feel so bad with more money in the bank than you can spend. "Money may not buy happiness," we might say, "but it helps you look for it more comfortably in a convertible."

Not to pick on Mr. Gates, one of the most generous philanthropists around, but life hardly ever seems fair. Seven year-old little girls die of cancer through no fault of their own. Talented and well-educated men lose their jobs simply because their company needs to downsize. Marriages and relationships fall apart when a hotter hottie shows up. Hurricanes, tornadoes and wildfires destroy homes of folks with no insurance.

When you look at the big picture, however - when you realize, as you eat your ice cream, that most humans in this world will go bed hungry tonight. And tomorrow night. And every night.  When you remember that you have been loved over and over in your life... When you recognize that you live in city without daily car bombs, snipers and mass killings... When you go to sleep in a bed. With sheets. And a hot shower in the morning, then you might agree with Oscar Wilde when he wrote, "Life is never fair, and perhaps it is a good thing for most of us that it is not."

Connections

Think about this great pull in us to connect.

- Hafiz

The connection of a mother to her baby as she nurses. The connection of a musician to his music as he plays his favorite riff.   The connection of a golfer to his game as he swings and watches the ball arc from tee to sky to green. The connection of a foodie to her first bite of steaming shrimp scampi with garlic and capers. The connection of a son to his father as the old man lies dying. The connection of a young teen to her new boyfriend as she opens to her first real kiss.              

There are human connections, links and bonds which take us far beyond rationality or explanation. We make links with animate or inanimate - with visible and invisible - with the sensual and the ascetic - profound connections which hook us up with elements and ingredients of life we might never otherwise experience. And these connections are often so profound and unfathomable as to defy explanation. 

Describe, if you can, for example, the connection between a man and his long-time faithful dog or the connection of potter to her clay as she spins an amorphous blob into a delicate vessel.           

It may well be that these deep mysterious connections point us to a connection with God. On the other hand, they may well be the actual connection.   

Howard is fully in summer mode - sweating, swimming and sweet-corning.  Also, lately, he's been swooning over Tom Robbin's newest book, "Tibetan Peach Pie."  It's a memoir which Tom refuses to call a memoir because he says, "I could make a long list of persons whose belly buttons I'd rather be contemplating than my own."

Tom and Howard are long-time friends and Howard is thrilled to be able now to see behind the scenes of this imaginative life he so admires.