Infinite chaos or peace?

121221 03:31 infinity

I advocate no single government or religion for anyone since all are corrupt with vanity and greed. What once was anarchy, becomes in time, orthodoxy, enslaving the potential inherent in all, save the few who purport to lead who are addicted to power, not grace or generosity.

Despondent over the course of recent events, a distillation of all my thoughts and concerns were answered in that opening phrase.

At times I recognize myself within a vast repository of potential, using by free association, all that I have experienced in my journey towards the meaning and value of life as defined for myself. Not absolute or definitive but viable and sane in a time of insanity.

Neither utopia or dystopia but a middle way.

It seemed during these intervening days my library had collapsed and suffocated me.

07:02

Reverting to origins I returned to my established practice, begun decades ago, when submerged and drowning in chaos, reading the Bible; then writing. The difference now is that my ‘book’ or ‘good news’ has expanded including the wisdom of others collected for the past several years. The effort has established an infinite universe of wealth that I am able to dive in randomly finding what is serendipitous.

Astonishing!

Since the anniversary of Randy, my son’s death and internment, the 10th of December 1976; and now added the tragedy of Newtown, Connecticut, I feared I would drown in my empathy for the children lost and their parents trials.

Not only has my faith been buttressed but discovered the place wherein I wandered so long ago. From which I have no desire to return or leave; ever.

When we lose those we love we enter a place never before imagined from which no return is desired . . . yet for me the joy of knowing I loved and was so loved is my gratitude for life and the source of endless empathy thou it near killed me this time.

Love and empathy are like that; endless and infinite. Applicable to all -- indiscriminate.

Be well.

121223 12:50 why

What me wonder why peace within chaos?

I have been in turmoil since the anniversary of Randy’s death, my son having died on December 10th, 1976, an even over which I have grieved for the past many decades until very recently. Thanks in large measure to volunteering for hospice service, recently terminated. The season of Advent has always been a time of trouble and taken extensive effort to resolve into a time I could endure without thoughts of ending my life.

And this season is, by far since that first Christmas without either of my two dead children, the worse I can remember. Caused essentially through my empathy for the parents of twenty murdered children. Helpless to console the slayer, the slain or they who remain, yet endlessly conscious, as ever and always, of the 30 million children who die annually by causes that are avoidable.

Equanimity is more specific and pointed than “peace” since I knew their trial and can readily identify with it, still, at times I cry remembering what has been reconciled with. Yet the search has been worth everything including my life; about which I have no fear of losing having found a reason to go on, keeping on, to live another day fully conscious and alive not merely existing; no longer suffering.

My beloved friend M and several others have been and remain a resource beyond description for their acceptance of me. I am no prize and have long harbored the feeling of being unworthy of life itself; beginning soon after my birth.

Then too I have my ordinary daily practice of surfing for quotes. Add to which I have the affirmation of Eric Hoffer’s remark: "The wise learn from the experience of others, and the creative know how to make a crumb of experience go a long way." . . . it is descriptive of my way of learning and ability to integrate an association with the Creation/Creator who I, increasingly, am unable/unwilling to name; since like the noise surrounding that tragic event in Connecticut it is all chaos.

Our time, culture, civilization is too freighted with brand name associations. My resources via quotes, reading, etc. coupled with the always astonishing experience of “When the student is ready, the teacher will appear.” The latter is not a literal translation, but approximate, and derived/transliterated from both Eastern and Western wisdom traditions. All combined have lead me away from articulating any one versus another religion or philosophy or, even now, psychology or aesthetic.

For example: I do not find it curious that I began reading Annie Dillard or Evelyn Underhill before the events I detail; personal or corporate.

What I have written, at least that which I have chosen to publish, is a body of annotations on my journey; I haven’t arrived yet. And at that I have no sense the death of my body will end what I have discovered available to one and all.

Seek and you will find, ask and it will be given to you.

My Christmas wish and prayer is that you who read this will find a moment or more to experience in silence the gift of life and celebrate that absent any fear of death.

Be well.

© 2012 by Jack Spratt - All Rights Reserved