As It Turns Out
Kind People,
We begin the day with a mild inquiry:
Why in the world are we here?
It’s my favorite question. I study it, map it, take notes. I speak weekly (weakly?) about it. I peer around the edge of strangers’ online presence to see what they have to say. Most often what I notice is
A) People trying to make sense of life’s difficult situations (cancer, motherhood, divorce, addiction, death) or
B) People making fun of everything.
Life seems to be so tragic and so hilarious at the same time.
What is the deal with the human condition?
I find that I care less and less about the details of life: Will the flight arrive on time? Will the new owners ever open the shop? Will everyone want fish or meat? Are they tired of getting socks?
I mean, really, who cares? Life will be life and life will always march on.
Until we have marched so hard and so carelessly and with so much greed that maybe we’ll snuff the whole project out. I mean, if I were Planet Earth and all these people were guests in my house I’d want them off the premises. There are a couple of quiet interesting ones I’d want to keep around, but the vast majority? Pfff.
In the meantime? Why are we here at all?
OK, yes, there are the wise ones, the great musicians, poets and prophets. They have said some really cool things about life. But the older I get the less I’m interested in what all the old people have said and the more interested I become in what the young ones are saying. And doing and thinking. They are, after all, in the process of creating what comes next.
More than anything I’m interested in what the dead are saying and have said. They’re the ones in the box seats. They have the Infinite View to the show. It appears that once the flesh suit is shed and the soul leaves this limited place, a lot of things become clear. For one, the immense folly of our materialistic ways.
Now please don’t get me wrong about that. Life is a material experience and material things are nice. Nice places are nice. Beaches are nice, mountains are nice, and the things we use to experience those places are nice. Cashmere is nice, good coffee is nice. When Christmas is over my son is heading to Austria, my daughter back to Lake Tahoe and I’m going to Aspen. Not because we’re wealthy or snooty, we’re not, but we’ve kind of centered our lives around the pursuit of skiing and because we have placed our energy and love in that direction, we have found partners and jobs that allow us to be in those kinds of places.
The math looks like this: skiing brings us joy. The more we ski, the greater our level of joy, the healthier and more alive we feel. And when we feel healthy and alive we attract more of the thing that is creating those conditions. So off we go, to Colorado and California and Austria, to ski with people we love. Joyfully.
Life pretty much works like that. You can question me all you want on that concept, I didn’t invent it. Marcus Aurelius, two thousand years ago, was telling people that your life is what you think, that the quality of your thoughts produce the quality of your life.
So that’s how life works. But why is there life at all? Why joy, why suffering, why isn’t the sun up yet, at almost 7am? Who made all the rules and why can’t we change them? Why do some people fall deep into very dark conspiracy theories and other people think everything is funny?
Most of us are pretty confused about life. No one is really all that great at love or forgiveness or sorting the recycling. Mostly we’re muddling through, worried a lot of the time. More concerned with what other people are doing or wearing or driving. Other peoples’ illness and death remind us that our sand will one day run out, too. But it doesn’t seem to motivate us to live better, it seems to just make us anxious.
Humans have been on this planet for a really, really long time now. And we’re still throwing rocks at each other. If we’re evolving it’s barely discernible most days.
I think it might be a good idea to choose joy. What the heck? Why not? Just decide every day that you’re going to enjoy your life today. That you’re going to find the humor and smile more and be super grateful for the things that are good and less focused on the things that are not. Drink and eat more thoughtfully, knowing your drinking and eating days will come to an end eventually. Look people in the eyes and offer hugs. Mention that you’re proud of your kid when they’re around. Keep an eye out for someone who looks like they could use a hand. Don’t be mean, don’t go for the easy way out.
It’s that time of year again, when I have to figure out what to say to a room full of people, most of whom don’t come to church the other fifty one weeks of the year. What to say about the birth of that little baby, the farm animals, the star, the shepards, who would not, by the way, have been guarding their flock at night in the dead of winter.
Did God really choose to show up here as a baby born to an unwed teenage mom?
Jesus might be a fable, the whole story fabricated by a bunch of guys hanging around a campfire, drinking too much mead. Should we still be fixated on this one guy, year after year? Maybe. Maybe not.
Questions begetting questions begetting questions.
I like to think about all the years in his life when nothing was recorded, from the time he was like 12 until 30. That leaves a lot to the imagination. I like to think of him as just a regular guy, probably doing some woodworking with his dad. I’ll bet you anything he tried to wiggle out of the whole Prophet for Humanity thing. But when he finally caved I’m sure he sighed a heavy sigh, looked out at the crowds, a whole bunch of people who rarely thought about spiritual evolution, who really just wanted to get back home to eat roast beef and open presents, and said what every holy freak has been saying since: people, just be nicer, don’t step over the homeless guy, give the sick lady a lift to the ER, if you have sixteen coats, for christsake, give one away and make sure there’s enough bread and wine to go around.
It’s not, as it turns out, really all that hard.
xo,mo