Shhh

Existence can be too noisy; humming florescent lights, buzzing printers, car noises, ringing phones, blaring televisions, and voices coming from every direction. Most days I go through the sound jungle by tuning it all out and not realizing why I'm utterly agitated. Like waking from a nagging dream to the realization of a blaring alarm clock, some days bring a maddening realization that sanity will only be preserved by shutting it all off.

At the time of my grandmother's death, I was a first-time mom of a very demanding 8-week old. Sleep deprivation and over-stimulation from constant demands were already taking their toll. I had never been faced with the death of a close relative before that time. It was a chaotic season in my small world. After the funeral, we did what every surviving family does - deal with the estate. We cleaned out clutter, donated unwanted items, and stored whatever remained. A cozy home was transformed into an empty building. Once the house was emptied there were many evenings that I would go into the dark living room and sit on the floor against the bare wall. The only noise that would arise would be the passing of a train from time to time; otherwise, just darkness and quiet.

Fast forward a few years. Three small children and a full-time job was cranking pressure down like a vice. The kids cried most every morning when I would leave for work which was never a happy start to a day. Work was either maddeningly boring or insanely busy; no in-between. To say the family was miserable puts it mildly. Knowing that, and also knowing that I was only giving somewhere around 30% into anything I touched, kept my mind buzzing. On days that chaos could not be contained, I would skip any errands or lunch plans and bolt to the library. Yes, the library.

I love libraries. The only sounds that interrupt the quiet are pages turning or hushed whispers. The couches are old and worn which only means they are extremely comfortable. Even the temperature is maintained at a perfectly comfortable level regardless of any heat wave or bitter-cold rain outside. Just walking through the doors lightens my attitude.

Rewind back many, many years. My childhood home had a side lot with pecan trees on the property. To young me it seemed as if it was 100 acres. The reality is that it is only an acre, if that big. In the spring Brown Eyed Susans would bloom, covering the field in bright yellow. Fall would bring pecans down to the ground. In either season, I would go out into the field and just sit; alone and quiet.

Most moments need to be faced head-on regardless of the noise and chaos. There is also a very appropriate time to unplug and shut it all down for a bit. Seasons change and things that bring us peace change with them. Life shifts and nothing remains the same; nothing, except for our mind's need for quiet. What you find comfort in today might not be the same for tomorrow but wherever you are, find a place to just be.

Strings Attached

When I was a child I remember an impression rise up in my mind that there were invisible strings attached to people. I was careful to not get mine tangled up behind me. For example, if I walked around a table in a clockwise direction, I was careful to walk back around it in a counter-clockwise direction. I literally retraced my steps. I'm aware this sounds like a manic O.C.D. episode, especially for a child, but it was brief lived; probably ran the time span of about a week.

That image has been long vanished from my mind until recently contemplating on the truth that each individual has a myriad of defining moments that are largely taken for granted. The smallest visions that we see around us all have a string that winds back for miles in time; twisted around and through the most unexpected influences. A woman holding a child is rarely anything noticeable. Backtrack down her time-line from that moment and see the knot that is the attempts that were miscarried, the tangle of relationship issues that had to be considered to start a family, all the way back to the twisted mess of anorexia that had depleted her developing body to the point that threatened her ability to ever conceive at all. Awareness of the presence of struggle allows for a deeper appreciation of even the most simple things; (in this story) snuggles between mother and child.

Examples of shallow assumptions that cheat us of special moments could be listed ad nauseum. The point would be the same: each life has a ball of twine stringing behind it. Every moment we experience and witness has a complicated history that is usually forgotten or ignored. We speed through visions around us on auto-pilot. Individual struggles are not considered and we assume that things just work out somehow; rarely recognizing that the most seemingly unrelated kink in the line affects and determines the direction of the line. In doing so, we miss the special moments when those tangled strings become clear and straight and, for a moment, we can soar.

Philosophy of Mind

Every doctrine and theology that once made up my world view has been shredded to pieces. I have quite a comprehensive list of things that I no longer believe. However, when I’m asked, “What do you believe in?” I come up short. The questioner is essentially asking for my personal definition of God, salvation, and the afterlife. Most often when I’ve attempted to formulate an answer, I can clearly sense the interviewer is not trying to hear me but is readily compiling their rebuttal to any answer that would differ from the “I Am”, as introduced in the book of Exodus. I haven’t developed much of a new belief system based in faith. Truthfully, I’ve enjoyed the break from having to.

I haven’t always been this cavalier. Leaving the traditional view of Christianity behind was a necessary, but fearful, event for me. I am one that feels very uncomfortable with not having black and white answers and defined outlines. I am compelled to feel that I have a solid base on the idea at hand. Wandering out into wide open philosophical spaces takes away that safety net. However, my growing Cognitive Dissonance between sermons and rational thought had grown so intense that I needed to drop it all and accept not knowing.

So, what do I believe in? I’d rather answer it by beginning with an entirely different phrasing: What is my philosophy of mind?

We are all searching for something outside of ourselves. We wish for something greater that we can look to, trust in, be thankful for and possibly repay. Daniel Dennett wrote an essay, with which I completely agree, called Thank Goodness. In this writing he works through a recovery period in his health to which he is truly thankful for the goodness that he has encountered.

The best thing about saying thank goodness in place of thank God is that there really are lots of ways of repaying your debt to goodness—by setting out to create more of it, for the benefit of those to come. Goodness comes in many forms, not just medicine and science. Thank goodness for the music of, say, Randy Newman, which could not exist without all those wonderful pianos and recording studios, to say nothing of the musical contributions of every great composer from Bach through Wagner to Scott Joplin and the Beatles. Thank goodness for fresh drinking water in the tap, and food on our table. Thank goodness for fair elections and truthful journalism. If you want to express your gratitude to goodness, you can plant a tree, feed an orphan, buy books for schoolgirls in the Islamic world, or contribute in thousands of other ways to the manifest improvement of life on this planet now and in the near future.

I once had hopes that a new type of church formation would emerge. I rarely think toward that anymore. It may happen, it may not. I focus more on the goodness of the moment. My drive to “do something for God” has been replaced by “just be kind to people”. Anne Lammott writes it best with her definition of the Law of the Jungle: “Remain calm and share your bananas.”

And as for the piece of the human question that begs, “for what purpose are we here?”, psychologist Carl Jung’s answer is my favorite: As far as we can discern, the sole purpose of human existence is to kindle a light in the darkness of mere being.