I was on the gulf shore with family recently standing on the third sandbar
out on a hot early September day. I had a bottle of Royal Reserve whisky, a two
liter bottle of diet Pepsi, a glass, and a folding chair. Between sips of whisky
(like I’m doing right now which is why this blog entry might sound like
gibberish no matter how much editing I do) I walked out into the offshore
shallow water there. Standing in the water, I laid back in the salt water
floating and praying like I do when I’m in or by the ocean.
I looked across the waters surface off to the horizon toward PEI and there
in silence God reminded me of a verse of scripture I didn’t fully remember the
words to. I knew it was God speaking to me however and that the scripture was
related to something said related to Gods Spirit moving across the waters. I was
with my friend, maybe my only friend, and He was reminding me of His eternal
presence with me and in creation.
Here now, while having a few drinks, I’ve decided to philosophize like I
currently don’t understand things about God or understand Him like I do as a
friend. My faith really does remind me of His existence but I figure people are
in different mindsets and the truth is uncertain and filled with so many
legitimate arguments. I therefore don’t want to preach but try to reason and
speculate about the unknown.
Was there previously before the present time that we now know a power of
love. Was then this force of love In some prehistoric place and existing amid a
preexistence before us in our time. Did love proceed us before this world we now
know was here or before any of us fought for the truth of things we may now
search for. Was love there, and is love still here the big questions.
I wonder about this, does that kind of absolute unending something good
really exist. Does an intelligible thinking force transcending us then, for
whatever reason, hide from us and only reveal itself, Himself, Herself,
conditionally, based on experiences, our will, our sense of fairness, through
our sorrows etc.. Are these illusions of a God’s beauty real. Are such
transcending possibilities about the truth really how things ultimately are or
merely how we estimate them to be sometimes.
I ask this wondering If a force of some kind of good transcends us. Are the
ways of such a forces capacity really ways of love that are pleased with
conditions of good. Can this force really be trusted to be compassionate and can
it by it’s essence and character truly deliver us beyond the chaos we currently
struggle amid. If this love is a thinking power is it by it’s nature then a
power that naturally knows a loyal and dedicated love. Can this love be grounded
on unalterable, non diminishable, truly compassionate terms.
With it’s voice maybe then this power knows and is able to speak life
itself into existence. With a better and fairer vision then ours and of the
infinite and eternal does such a creative capacity love beyond our inadequate
limitations. Is there then a force beyond us that builds life through thought,
through a word, creating the world as we know it to be.
I know that we arrive on the journey through the ages at a point on the
timeline of history. We have limited, hindered, inaccurate self-awareness. Our
ideas compete with each other by making claims of “the truth” as we move forward
building upon these understandings as we continuously contribute to the world by
thought through the generations. We hear rumors as we move through life of love
written and translated and recycled. Yet our methods for acquiring “the truth”
are possibly flawed as too is our loyalty flawed to the old and new systems of
thought that are giving us answers.
Our attitudes toward what the truth is becomes reckless, defiant and boldly
resistant because of these systems of thought, myth, unbending
theory, etc..Truth isn’t just there or obvious on our journey despite claims of
such. Perfect love is seen by us only in a haze because as human beings we can
only see through a glass that obstructs our capacity to see fully to know that
kind of love. Our tribal associations puts limitations on our grasp of seeing
the humanness of one another. We gather in a pact of people reminding ourselves,
reinforcing ourselves, in our like-mindedness, that we supposedly know
everything relevant because of these beliefs we have as a group. We are
determined there in those places, by our irrationality, to blindly offer
certainty claims to the others we accept and then to reject the alternative
others who experience life differently. That false certainty is regularly fed
and delivered into susceptible minds that are offering these people the
supposed laws and certitudes of the fate of imperfect human beings. What
ultimately lies beyond us and our own groups claims is blindly explained away in
a contest of idea claims. We share the unquestioned laws and ideas of our own
inheritance catering to interests entirely self justifying that usually leave
out one another.
We in this way become at our worst the vulgar travelers across the world
stage. We move through time spitting and punching and yelling and screaming and
mocking and often shutting each other out. We conspire to do evil against one
another at our very worst on ideological grounds. While at our best we humble
ourselves conquering our pride, forgiving each other and finding ways to love
our neighbor however far away or different the culture of our neighbor is or how
awful that cultures influence is there where they live.
I wonder here now in Nova Scotia, do we have any reason now to see good in
the grandiosity of life. We know we defy moral boundaries stepping from good
into evil naively, often innocently enough, in Africa, in the Middle East,
everywhere in this world where human beings are. The human person loses his or
her way often. The world struggles on with ideas competing for the truth and
often as a rule arriving at misunderstandings. It’s more common for a human
being to arrive at a false judgment then at finding the truth.
Does our comprehension of love end in our death and in our loved ones
deaths. This is the tragedy of life. We all fear or accept we may fade away with
time. Some new band of wonderer then passes the roadside cemeteries where our
bones lay under the topsoil and grass. Are we all together in death though. I
hope we become better friends in death then in life. I speculate if our minds
and capacity for understanding are opened in death then that we’re going to be
set on a continuing journey to really know and care about each other.
Love might surpass this kind of hopeful speculation though. Love might be
bigger then this and traverse all the boundaries of supposedly being realistic.
The truth may transcend doubt, cynicism, fear and despair. Love itself might
really hold such a masterful grip on this life beyond anything a mortal being
can appreciate. Ultimately then by this kind of optimism or faith we’re then by
this power rescued from the depth of our seeming final undoing.
This world we’re on staggers forward in the unknown Universe with it’s
outer unending multiverses or perhaps a different unconsidered law of infinity
itself full of the potential boundless creative works in it’s nature. We are all
somewhere here now we don’t know amid something larger, much larger, amidst the
greatest of all possible unknowns. We live amid this unknown and before a
frontier of infinite uncertainty. Our sights and hopes and struggles continue on
as we go onward on this journey.
The question becomes how far are our sights. How deep is the awareness of
our love for one another. How complete is our capacity to see the real dignity
of the human person here in this life and after death itself. Can we love
mankind universally wherever that person ends up and however misguided they were
in reaching ultimately what’s beyond here in this world.
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