Spiritual Beings
Yesterday, I saw a bumper sticker that I really liked: "We are not human beings having a spiritual experience. We are spiritual beings having a human experience." That's what I want to believe.
In the last week, I've had some perceived connections to my late wife. Sometimes it's just a feeling of a presence, and yesterday, I feel like she told me where I had misplaced some documents. When these visitations come to me, it's not at all spooky or eerie. It's relieving. It's like seeing the sun after weeks of darkness.
Since she died, I've had family and friends try to fill my craw with dime-store spirituality about the wonders of God and Universe. I can't find the point in resisting it, but I can't just buy into it, either. It's too pretty to believe, like a happy Hollywood ending.
Yeah. So? Even if it is a crock of shit, it's a crock of shit that can comfort me. Why mail myself in a box when I can travel business class for just a few dollars more?
There are no answers. I will never know on this earth whether the voice on the other line really is Wendy or the perturbations of my own troubled mind. So, it comes down to a decision. You're either on the bus, or you're not on the bus, as Ken Kesey said.
A friend recommended a book called The Noonday Demon: An Atlas of Depression. The author talks in the first few pages about how depression sufferers often feel relieved to know the chemical basis for their depression, that they feel absolved of the responsibility of their feelings. But, he says, everything inside us is chemical. "Thousands of chemical reactions are involved in deciding to read this book, picking it up with your hands, looking at the shapes of the letters on the page, extracting meaning from those shapes, and having intellectual and emotional responses to what they convey."
Faith, then, is believing that spirit moves chemicals.
P.S. to Wendy: Rabbit rabbit
In the last week, I've had some perceived connections to my late wife. Sometimes it's just a feeling of a presence, and yesterday, I feel like she told me where I had misplaced some documents. When these visitations come to me, it's not at all spooky or eerie. It's relieving. It's like seeing the sun after weeks of darkness.
Since she died, I've had family and friends try to fill my craw with dime-store spirituality about the wonders of God and Universe. I can't find the point in resisting it, but I can't just buy into it, either. It's too pretty to believe, like a happy Hollywood ending.
Yeah. So? Even if it is a crock of shit, it's a crock of shit that can comfort me. Why mail myself in a box when I can travel business class for just a few dollars more?
There are no answers. I will never know on this earth whether the voice on the other line really is Wendy or the perturbations of my own troubled mind. So, it comes down to a decision. You're either on the bus, or you're not on the bus, as Ken Kesey said.
A friend recommended a book called The Noonday Demon: An Atlas of Depression. The author talks in the first few pages about how depression sufferers often feel relieved to know the chemical basis for their depression, that they feel absolved of the responsibility of their feelings. But, he says, everything inside us is chemical. "Thousands of chemical reactions are involved in deciding to read this book, picking it up with your hands, looking at the shapes of the letters on the page, extracting meaning from those shapes, and having intellectual and emotional responses to what they convey."
Faith, then, is believing that spirit moves chemicals.
P.S. to Wendy: Rabbit rabbit
Labels: Wendy
3 Comments:
Did she know of the cancer? What was it?
Yes, she knew. It was lung cancer. She blamed herself for it because she smoked cigarettes.
just because a car runs on fluids doesnt mean the driver is obsolete.
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