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November 21, 2007
In Consideration of Wood Beams
Last night I was lying in bed waiting for Kayla, staring at the wood beams and letting my mind race in the most random of ways.
I was trying to get my mind around God; about what exactly He is and what, if anything, He has to do with me. I swing between the extremes of despising and admiring those people who are so sure of their relation to Him. The individuals or institutions who quote the Bible as an inerrant oracle to the blinding divine.
Even from an early age I always had a problem with the idea of the Bible, not the book itself or even what it said but rather that it was The Word of God. I remember asking in Sunday school if there were going to be any more books added the Bible; Genesis was written so far in advance of Revelation and I figured there could be a Tom or Susan out there who might have something to add.
The answer I was always given, from multiple independent sources, was 'no'. Why? I mean really, why? And not even 'why' but 'how' as well, how did these people know that God put down a strict deadline after John got finished writing his fantasy epic on Patmos? This was troubling not because I wanted more stuff added to the Bible but because the Bible wasn't a word of God it was The Word of God and that meant God was done speaking.
The entire mystery of God was there, right in front of me, bound in leather and printed in Black and red.
It was depressing. Did He have nothing more to say?
Albert Einstein, in his essay Becoming a Freethinker and a Scientist, said, "Out yonder there was this huge world, which exists independently of us human beings and which stands before us like a great, eternal riddle, at least partially accessible to our inspection and thinking." This was the view of the world, and by extension 'God', that I instinctively had. There's always more to discover and this is what I was doing while lying on my bed, waiting for Kayla, staring at the knotted wood of the ceiling beams, contemplating the nails that held them in place and the atoms that stitched it all together.
And for just a moment the corners of reality were curled back and I got a fleeting glimpse of the terrifying infinity that lay beyond. I thought of Moses, up on the mountain top, as he saw but the shadow of God pass by or the assistants of the Levite priests, sweaty and scared, watching as the curtains to the holiest of holies were pushed aside, gripped in fear, wondering at the great unknown that lay hidden inside.
Then Kayla came upstairs and asked what I was doing.
"Trying to figure out the universe."
She laughed at me and then scrunched up her face into the type of smile that happens when a child says something unexpectedly adult and, by extension, cute. And all in a moment my mind raced and I thought back to what I had written earlier in my journal:
Even now as I write I am more unsettled, jangled and nerved by the liquid ground under my feet. What is truth? To love and be loved. To discover the source of love and cling to it. You, this God I've been writing and talking to for so many years, I believe you are that source. I want to know you more. I am seeking, let me find you; I am knocking, let me in; I am asking, please give.
I started to think about creation, from quarks to atoms to the largest of stars to the myriad galaxies in the milky way to beyond. All this matter, all this energy and I have the ability to see and consider it all. But what am I to do?
Love. Love and be loved. We all have compasses, some call them morals, others religious beliefs, others what you 'ought' to do. But at the core, as a human being I believe it is my charge to love and, if I do, I will be headed in the right direction and eventually arrive at my destination of infinity.
And just as a sailor will sometimes only see water and sky, I will live with the questions and trust that once I reach dry land they'll all be sorted out.
Posted by Jon at 04:49 AM | Comments (1)
November 01, 2007
Old Hallow's Eve
I've just now realized I didn't make a post summarizing the trip Matty and I took to Paris and Amsterdam. So here goes:
It was awesome. Eight days that felt like a month-long weekend.
Paris has to be seen to be believed...especially at night. It's moniker as 'The City of Lights' is very apt and never has any locale I've ever been in looked so beautiful at night. Amsterdam is an amazing city to go relax in. It's small and very intimate -- kind of like the tiny side streets of the back-bay -- so you can see all of it in a day. After that you are free to explore the smaller parts in greater detail and, within a couple of days, you feel as though you really know the place and can proper enjoy it.
Paris was too big to be enjoyed; often I felt as though I was racing from one destination to the next. Along the way all one had to do is turn their head to be presented with yet another beautiful site, demanding to be acknowledged in full within a scant handful of seconds.
Needless to say, both are places I want to visit again soon.
I took a bunch of pictures and am currently in the process of processing them. Hey, I was an art major...I can't just put up pictures without maniacally fretting over every details.
So yesterday was Halloween and there was a neighborhood party here at 'Zur Gempenfluh 90210'. The celebration of Old Hallow's Eve just recently made it to Switzerland and the population at large is going through the teething stage of it's observance. It's funny to see kids go Trick-or-Treating and only getting candy at 5-10% of the houses they visit. Most people answer the door, surprised to discover a group of spookily dressed kids and wondering why in the hell they're demanding candy on a school night.
Kayla made the astute observation that everyone here thinks they have to dress up as something 'scary'. We didn't see one hobo, princess (Disney or otherwise), Spiderman or Lightning McQueen. Only ghosts, ghouls, zombies, and the like. I don't have a problem with this at all -- in my opinion the spookier the better -- it's just funny to see a celebration that was such an entrenched part of my childhood begin in its infancy elsewhere.
Kayla and I brought Lenny up to the party, bearing a peace-offering of muffins and spent the dusk-hours in conversation as daylight began to fade. There was a mother applying make-up to a queue of little girls and a father showing a group of eager kids how to carve pumpkins. The air was brisk in the comfortable way but carried with it enough of a bite to remind you that winter is almost here. As the jack-o-lanterns lit up a cadre of crows flew overhead and I had a moment of complete connectedness with everything around me.
Life is so beautiful sometimes I can't hardly stand it -- especially when there are birds around. This flock of crows just continued circling overhead, not in a menacing way but in a soaring way; lazily riding the breezes and barely flapping their wings, content to go where the wind would take them. I had never seen this type of behavior before so I did a quick Google search and read that they do this to meet up before going to a nesting site where they sleep in numbers up into the thousands as protection from predators. To me it just looked like a great way to end the day; what better way than to fly with your friends?
I thought to myself, 'If I was a bird, that's the way I'd be.' It sounds silly now in retrospect but at the time it's exactly how I felt.
Posted by Jon at 05:01 AM | Comments (1)