A Mother's Prayer

Unsouled cells scream
Dreams of simple survival
As a mother whispers, “Thy will be done.”
Awash in love, entombed in peace,
Growing in a mother’s grace
This fatherless child
Vacantly surveys the
Toxic wasteland and
Floats, “Why?”

“Not?”

Knots
Strangle the soul yet unsold –
Hushing screams that
Echo in hallowed halls
As the fallen tree that makes no sound.
In the fullness of time,
Unsold cells find purchase –
Just another tool of purpose.

Sold cells dreamlessly sleep,
Without wakeful hope.
The path chosen is railed.

Gizmo's Revenge

The phone rang as Trudy and I were lopping the oleander branches that intruded into our walk space leading to the front door of our home. The sidewalk was piled high with leafy debris. I quickly jumped over the stuff and headed into the house – nearly tripping on my neighbor’s dog, Gizmo, who was prancing out as I was going in.

Gizmo was a reddish-brown Pekinese whose tongue was permanently stitched to the right side of his mouth. I don’t know this for a fact, but I am guessing that Pekinese dogs are near the bottom of the canine IQ scale. Actually, they are considerably south of stupid and are an embarrassment to their wolf ancestry. But, as dumb as Gizmo surely was, he was capable of digging out from under his dog run, and finding his way to our place.

By the phone’s third ring, I was in our home’s entry way and turning right, into my daughter’s former room. (Amy, my daughter, was in college at the time, and to her chagrin Trudy and I had turned her room into a den. It was upsetting to Amy – she seemed to feel that the room should have been frozen for all time as a shrine – with a braided red rope draped across the doorway. Visitors would someday be allowed to peer quietly into the preserved space and whisper; this is where Amy slept as a child.) Words haven’t been invented to express how much I love my daughter, but space was at a premium, so Amy’s room became a den – with a phone that was ringing.

My eyes led my body to the phone. My feet weren’t paying much attention. I never saw Gizmo’s present in the middle of the room.

“Shit,” I blurted as I lifted the receiver.

“What?” I heard my daughter say.

“Gizmo just pooped in the middle of your room.”

“What?” Amy repeated. I could only imagine her perplexity.

“Listen, let me get your mom,” I said while standing on the heel of my right foot – with beshitted toes sticking upward.

I dropped the receiver and angrily ordered my wife to the phone as I left Gizmo’s stinking excrement squashed on the den floor and limped into the kitchen where I grabbed a big wad of paper towels. The stuff between my toes was squishy, loose. Some of it dripped onto the carpet as I hobbled down the hall to the bathroom. This was truly a case where the expletive, “shit” had real meaning. I repeated the term often and loudly. Once in the bathroom, I lifted the toilet seat and began to unsoil my toes with the paper towels. It wasn’t a thorough cleaning; I’d need to shower for that. But I got most of the goop off and dropped the paper towels into the toilet and flushed.

Big mistake, but you knew that, right? The minute the glob of wadded paper hit the throat of the toilet it clogged and became a fountain of soggy paper, dog shit, and water. I was standing in sewage, pure and simple. Knowing something about plumbing, I yanked the lid off the toilet tank and pulled up the float, stopping the flow. But the water on the floor was moving towards the bathroom doorway so I grabbed at the towel on the towel rack. I yanked with such force that the towel rack ripped clean off the wall and plopped into the watery mess along with the towel.

At that moment, I froze – I was afraid to breathe, to move, or to talk. I was sure that locusts would soon be swarming our windows, frogs were pissing in our drinking water, or that Yellowstone was about to blow and bury us in ash. I was sure that if I looked over my shoulder, I would see John Calvin standing, arms akimbo and foot tapping, muttering, “tsk, tsk, tsk.” In Cavin’s world, my misery was predestined. God knew it was coming. There was no way I could escape Gizmo’s shit.

At that moment I hated John Calvin and most Presbyterians.

The Case for Conversion

It’s been a while since I read C. S. Lewis’, "Mere Christianity." I remember it being a convincing apology for belief in God, and belief in Jesus as God Incarnate. The fact that all humans share altruism is evidence, for Lewis, that God is, and that He is the God of the Bible. Jesus is God’s Son – as the Bible says – or He was a madman. Jesus was what He claimed to be, or a lunatic. There is no middle ground.

Lewis, after long conversations with close personal friends, became convinced of the deity of Jesus and his (Lewis’) need to respond to the good news that Jesus died to effect his salvation. Lewis’ conversion – whether he knew it or not – came on the heels of his conviction that the Bible had got it right. It was a singular blueprint for life’s meaning and purpose.

Many have followed the same path – both before and since. As often as not, the case for conversion is driven by personal demons, some expressed, some sequestered that tear away at personal identity and worth. A despicable slave trader who began to see himself as lost and ugly penned “Amazing Grace.” Others find solace, not only in sins forgiven, but also in the cushion of inner peace. John Lennon wrote, “Whatever gets you through the night, it’s alright, it’s alright.”

I don’t mess with conversion experiences. They are rare and (for the converted) they are real. If conversion can take a drug-addicted black man from a cardboard box on the streets of New York City, to a seat within the Brooklyn Tabernacle Choir, it’s really all right. Conversion is God’s prerogative I have to assume. C. S. Lewis got gripped by God, and that was that. End of story – or, maybe it was the beginning, at least for Lewis.

For most of us, it’s different. And by most, I mean just about everyone. You see, most of us are born into a religious mindset: Aztec, Native American, Islamic, Judaic, Buddhist, Hindu, or Christian, with all of its cults and permutations. Most of us are, from birth, consigned to a set of religious propositions that are nearly impossible to shake. Most of us don’t even think about them – they’re a given. Beyond that, without really understanding our religious assumptions, we get downright angry with anyone who challenges them. Wars get started over them. People die for them and because of them. Communities coalesce around common beliefs and outsiders are at best, ignored; at worst, obliterated. The story of the Good Samaritan be damned, if not by word at least by action.

It may have been unimportant to C. S. Lewis that the Gospels were written by interpreters and not by biographers or historians. The Gospel was taken as truth, irrespective of its literal correctness. Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John – and (before them all, Paul) – wrote of both actual and interpreted experiences with Jesus. Jesus never wrote a thing. The Gospel writers wrote in a context and used idioms that made sense to first century readers. Through the centuries the stories have been layered and reinterpreted. Most of us don’t get that. And, it’s a shame. The very institutions that were endowed with a mandate to proclaim the Gospel, buried it. Conversion became a club-joining thing – a culturally transmitted metaphysic capable of sloughing off criticism better than ducks shed water. Don’t even think about arguing whether Mohammed or Jesus actually ascended into the heavens. You can posit those beliefs without knowing the first thing about conversion.

You see, conversion is a radical re-orientation of one’s life. It is a turning away from the way things are to the way things might be, with an emphasis on how to be a better person and a better neighbor. It is a beginning point from which we deal aggressively with self-destructive thoughts and actions. It marks the onset of caring for others as much as we care for ourselves. Tribal hatreds and common greed are dealt a deathblow. Predatory instincts dissolve and are replaced by altruism. Wisdom is viewed with respect and is given a place of honor.

C. S. Lewis understood the power of metaphor better than most. He was gifted in its use. He knew from experience that a story could change a life. He took the essence of the Gospel and recast it in terms that even a child could understand. So when we argue over whether a story is historically accurate or not, we’ve missed the point and conversion becomes just another word.

Conversion contradicts the theory of natural selection – a theory that has served us well and is sound science. Conversion means that we understand that death is a means to life - not necessarily our own personal life, but to life – and who knows, maybe even the unfathomable purposes of God. Perhaps more than anything, conversion delivers us capable of seeing past the surface and into the substance. We understand the poetry, the metaphor, the allegory, and the aphorism – and catch a glimpse of the truth and are forever changed.

Teddy Bears in Flight

She shot me a look - Trudy, my wife of 41 years. I had pushed past the first question and asked the second. I, of course, should have known better. We were in the middle of supper; a time best spent reflecting on the day and trading small talk.

My first question was simply this: how would you define “psychosis.” I wasn’t looking for a dictionary definition. I was hoping for something more “man-on-the-street-ish” - in this case, more “woman-on-the-street-ish.” Trudy rarely disappoints me, and said matter-of-factly, after a sip of Chardonnay, that psychosis was “detachment from reality.”

That precipitated my second question, which as you already know, was ill advised. I knew it would be, but sometimes I can’t help myself.

“So, how would you define reality?”

“Are you writing another blog?” Trudy punched.

Our conversation ended on that note and our attention turned to “Devine Design,” an HGTV program that was playing on our TV next to the supper table.

There are many things that Trudy and I share – two grown children and four grandchildren – for starters. We also enjoy remodeling our home. We like to garden. We enjoy riding in my Bertone X-1/9 with the top down on warm summer afternoons. Periodically, we get our Mexican food fix at Jardine’s in San Juan Bautista. We still like, most of all, spending time together.

We don’t share a mutual compulsion to philosophize. I’m in that dank and murky forest on my own, without the lantern of my wife’s wisdom – a solitary man. My second question remains unanswered.

I watched a Robin Williams comedy routine once where Robin affected a stoner-dude who found himself in a crowd of folks who were peering heavenward. Actually, they were all abuzz about a lone figure, high up on the side of a building, readying himself for the jump of a lifetime. The crowd was saying, “Don’t jump, don’t jump!” Robin, the stoner-dude was saying to the contrary, “Hey man, jump. You don’t know, you might fly.”

I think Robin’s character might qualify as being “detached from reality.” I’m guessing, most of us would. Why? Most of us don’t think that a suicidal jumper can actually fly – right? A natural component of reality is that birds can fly, people can’t. And, we rely heavily on our experiences within nature to guide us safely through life. No matter how our world view is constructed, the proverbial tree does make a sound if dropped in the woods, whether we are there to hear it or not. Reality is physical, verifiable, even if not completely understood.

Oh yeah, I forgot – except for religion. In the religious world reality is different. We are permitted to believe even if we cannot experience – even if we cannot verify. We are permitted to believe that angels and demons protect or corrupt. We are permitted to believe that procreation doesn’t always require a sperm and an ovum. We are permitted to believe that God can be described in human terms – and that we can know what His expectations are. We are not detached from reality if we believe that dead people can be resurrected or that prophets can magically be transported “up” into heaven. We can believe with certainty that a wafer and a sip of wine become actual human flesh and blood. We can believe that celibacy has no downside. We can believe that Allah smiles with pleasure at the death of infidels. We can even believe that the natural world – and what it presents to us – is less reliable than the world of dogma.

At the same time if you put on a pair of sunglasses, and thought the sun had dimmed, you’d be ridiculed. If you stick your head in the sand, to stop the bullets from whizzing past your backside, you’d be committed. If you moored your ship to a rotting stump (with perfect seaman’s knots), you’d be considered a fool. If you hugged your teddy bear to keep the boogeyman away, you’d be called a child.

If you jump from a tall building you don’t fly. You die. Your reality will most certainly become detached.

The Dark Side of Heaven

Take away 70 vestal virgins and would there have been a 9/11? Take away the threat of hellfire and brimstone, and would we have a religious right or a Catholic Church?

I know, I know – there are those who would say that religious embrace comes from a deep-seated need to be connected to an Almighty, or as a response to the love of God, or as a means to quell misdirected passions. But take away the reward of heaven and how committed would any of us be to a God? Religious institutions know about this deepest yearning of the human psyche – to live forever. Religious institutions also have the ticket – we just have to buy it. It’s always been for sale.

Human imagination is a wonderful and a terrible thing all at once. Consciousness gives rise to all sorts of “possibilities.” We stake our beliefs on the desires we covet, not necessarily the hopes that can be achieved. Living forever is one of those desires - even if it is a notion that is contradicted by every nuance of experience. It is a hope for which we are literally willing to sell our souls. And, what’s the problem with that, you say?

9/11 may have answered that question for some.

For the rest, let me put it this way - heaven, no matter how configured, has a dark side. It is one of those squishy propositions that finds residence in temples, churches, and mosques – but can find no certain definition. As such, it has become a powerful plaything of manipulators and tyrants, as much as a promise offered by the well meaning. Describe this wonderful reward in the terms you choose – then pattern the behavior required for its attainment. Religion empowers itself by so doing, and sends its missionaries to proclaim the gospel of eternal life – and eternal death. It, they claim, is up to you to make the choice. Really? That’s a pretty big hammer, if you ask me.

The cosmos is a big (very big) and strange place. Maybe tucked away in some far away galaxy there is a spot certain called “heaven.” Maybe as our last breath oozes from our lungs and consciousness gives way, we are magically transported to that place. Maybe. For sure, the flesh, bones, sinew, tissue, and neurons that define who we are in time and space, will not make that trip. The atoms that make us up would be rudely treated by any foray off this planet – and not likely reassembled somewhere habitable. So, what of us survives to “live” in this “other” dimension? Uh, dunno. Maybe someone else does, but I can’t conjure it – religious dogma notwithstanding. And, sorry, I can’t just “accept it by faith.” My faith takes me somewhere else.

My faith takes me to a grave where my body will fertilize new and different life. My faith takes me to an end point from which I will never return – except in the memories of others. My faith takes me to a personal demise – even as my genetic material travels an infinite journey of permutation through progeny. “That’s it,” you say. No life everlasting, no heaven. Just death? Where’s the hope? How depressing.

Actually, not. As I fall into alignment with every other thing that has ever existed – organic or inorganic – and then succumbed, it humbles me and makes present moments even more profound. As I consider killing or judging others in the name of God for the sake of eternal reward, a heaven-less eternity gives me pause.

If my ethic is not based on eternity, how should I behave? It seems to me that demons consume the evil in time. Eternity isn’t relevant. Does history treat evildoers well? Do evil ones find solace in their deeds? Does the threat of eternal damnation inhibit those who delight in the infliction of pain and suffering? In contrast, even without the promise of eternal bliss, do the good not benefit from their goodness? Is their goodness not sufficient in and of itself? Are we not more in concert with our Creator when we ask for nothing more than what we have been given in time and space? When greed or desire for more is quashed, are we not made free?

Lots of questions, here – here’s one more: are we willing to lay on the altar the proposition of heaven if it brings to us a world in which we love one another as much as we love our dogma?

Saddle Up

Quantum mechanics tells us that the cosmos is ruled by probabilities. Some things are more probable than others. It’s hard to argue with the premise, even if we would prefer that physical laws never change. Articles of faith – religious and scientific - depend on the notion of probability.

Let’s say, for instance, you need to go to the grocery store. At your disposal are a horse and a split-rail fence. You have a choice, here. Do you choose the horse, or the fence, as a means of transport?

Fences have a lot going for them. First and foremost they require little upkeep. They don’t require food or exercise; they’re sturdy, easy to mount, and no matter how long you sit on them, they never tire. Horses aren’t nearly as practical. Mama told you from childhood about fences – and that belief in their benefits was not to be questioned. In addition, you happen to have it on convincing authority that fences make for good transportation. In fact, volumes have been written to support fence riding: as in, “I saw myself riding a fence over the land of Unbelief and felt compassion for those who only had horses.” Lots of people believe in fences. Lots. Not only that, but since fences are so cost effective (as opposed to horses), you’d have more money to spend on riding gear. Think about how sharp you’d look riding your fence in tack with style.

Oh, sure, there are the doubters – the unbelievers. There have always been those who have mocked fences. There have always been the stiff-necked and hard-hearted. There have always been unbelievers. No amount of effort will persuade the afencist, so it’s best to just keep on riding. Eventually, through the exercise of faith, the fence will take you to the Promised Land – or to the grocery store. It's true, fences don’t have the muscle and the heart – and the capacity – of the horse, but what’s to say that a volcano might not erupt under you and your fence and carry you (maybe a little charred) to the store of your choice. Maybe a tectonic plate will inexplicably slide - ever so gently - and convey you to groceries. Or, perhaps a tornado or a hurricane will blow you and your fence to your desired destination. Who knows? It could happen. That’s the point of probabilities, isn’t it?

So, what’s it going to be, Bucko? What kind of evidence are you waiting for? Where’re you gonna place your faith? It’s your call. Saddle up and have a nice ride. And, oh yeah, we’re out of peanut butter. Grab us a jar while you’re at the store. Right now, I've got to see a man about a horse.

Don Doan

Reason And Art

Through our senses we experience the world. Through the mind (and how it is shaped) we interpret the world. Language is a uniquely useful tool for sharing experiences and interpretations – but not the only one. Art, in its many forms, works as well. We communicate through art. We share through art. It reaches a mystical place within us – but not a place that is disconnected from our mind. Religion and science rely on the communicative capacities of both language and art.

Reason is the tool we use to make sense of our perceptions and interpretations. Reason is the tool we use to develop assumptions and to evaluate results. Through reason we organize, evaluate, synthesize, and implement. It is not antagonistic to language or art – it is a servant to both. By itself, it carries no moral weight, has no moral value. Without reason we would cease to be human – and before long, cease to be.

In lieu of anything better, religion evolved as the primary mechanism for explaining the cosmos and the human relationship to it. Shamans, brujos, mystics, medicine men, healers, spirit people, witch doctors, priests, preachers, imams, and rabbis were imbued with power because of their claims of connectedness to a separate reality – claims that were supported by acts of magic and a clientle that was eager for safe harbor from the whims and ravages of Mother Earth. But even in the good old days, primordial days, religious forms were built on a foundation of reason and were extended through language and art.

In terms of creation religion paints with the brush of metaphor; science pursues the substance. In terms of morality, religion opens pathways, science shows where those paths lead.

Luminosity in Blue

Bayou moon births your bathing beauty
Through aged eyes.
I come to you this holy night
Of our darkest kiss,
Washed in blue luminosity.

Cypress stands our witness.
Adorned, mossy-creped, to
Celebrate, muddy-rooted and still.
Watching.

Wet sparks fly from failing flesh.
Rippling pools dance below
Orbs so perfect and proud,
Bringing rise one last time - a jest, perhaps,
Nevertheless, convulsing.

Telescoping time through gazes returned,
The universe unfolds to take us
Naked - without shame, beloved.

Bayou moon enlight our embrace.
Passion plays our journey home.