I see Life as one universal question mark, with each of us huddled together rotating similar doubts upon the planetary dot that dangles as if detached below. Wonder is to me among the most fantastic gifts on Earth. Particularly beautiful are those inquiries that have no definitive responses. These ever-present thoughts don’t leave us for as long as we choose to turn to them, evolving like friendship if we take the time to invest ourselves, and avoid growing discouraged. They hang with us.

With so many vital issues present in the air, though, we tend to feel so small, burdened, bullied…!

….is there a God/ Supreme Being of unfathomable power? we ask feeling very much alone, while another hesitation nags at our back: “Does it matter?” Would exist or not exist change our ideal of human behavior? My response is No, it should not. Then, it matters very little, if at all. I’m no atheist. In my mind the word presses it self into existence as real idea. Intangible as a Pegasus, but there it is, undeniably already articulated, even if unimagined: “God.”

…if He/She exists can we mere humans see Him/Her? To me God is beyond image, being Imagination Itself. My personal conviction is that God is all that is—there hiding in plain sight!! Whether we open our eyes or close them, there is God: within, without; as the whole of the world, which we will never decipher. God is, period. We find throughout various esteemed philosophical texts that God is described as “I am:” a phrase we use ourselves, as demi-gods. Often in the most trivial verbiage… failing to acknowledge that we are mouthpieces of God. I am tired… I am mad… I am unable… I am weak… I am stupid… I am bad… Much blasphemy that goes unrecognized.

…why do people suffer?! is a question of fundamental misconception, trailing from the preceding lack of recognition—in my assessment. If God is all that there is, then let's see this issue without the falsely envisioned trenches. When we separate ourselves from God we misconstrue that it is a pitiful “me” or "you" who is on the firing line, while the Almighty God stands by and does nothing. The inseparable togetherness that I perceive does not permit this division. It is God who suffers, and God who rejoices. We lend voice to this temporal response of the Infinite, but it is not really the individual “me” or "you" that bleeds, or bruises, or falls apart. Likewise, the credit is not “mine” or "your's" when anyone of us declares success. That does not mean that we are not to act with compassion towards one another and our very own selves, striving to lessen hardship. I see each one of us as a vessel, perhaps a vape would be an apt metaphor? The body filled with Holy Spirit, temporarily carried like breath. It passes through me in exhalation, inhaled by someone else. If not withheld, this is a force that resuscitates and uplifts. It’s an intensely intimate exchange disguised very much like an ordinary conversation.

We speak to the Universe, and it answers. It always does. It speaks with many tongues, in languages we do not always identify—beyond words, signs, sounds or touch—in an endless array of propositions. Showing off a complete immersion in invention; one that we directly partake in. I see it as a constant back and forth, a give and take feed. Despite our own frequent declarations that we just don't comprehend why this or that exists, we find it hard to refrain from judging! Mostly we don’t grasp with much depth, and on reflection regret this fact... but sometimes we have the wondrous sensation that we “understand.”

(Take this binary dialogue that you and I are having right now… it’s like making contact with an extraterrestrial, is it not? A miracle that we articulate in a common decoding, each of us out there, somewhere, no where really… perhaps already gone. By the time you read this so much has already changed for the author. These initial thoughts are herein encoded… ended! But the Thinking goes on… transferred now to weigh upon your mind, even if mine has passed on. An omniverse of consciousness; Is that not the transcendentalism of God?)

…has He/She given us free will?! The Infinite is forever proposing. The beauty of it is that we seem to be able to make counter propositions. I see the Creator as always extending a dynamic “invisible hand,” and we can choose to grasp it—with abandonment to absolute faith. Or, retract our arms behind our backs and sit out the dance with self-doubt. Worse yet, we can possibly decide to hiss in animosity at the sincerity of the invitation. What we embrace, grows; what we reject festers—since a proposition once postulated never goes away! 

As I see it, our human distinction is the capacity to stand in Opposition… God offers; we need not accept. No choice is without consequence hence we have tremendous power to Redirect, even though as part-and-parcel we never Direct… this is, for the moment, my understanding of our relationship with God and of the nature of Free Will.

It seems that mankind has a strong tendency towards division and isolation. We see ourselves as if apart from the Universal; apart from Nature; apart from each other; even apart from our singular Selves. Perhaps the “refractive error” in perception stems from that last inclination. We are the looking glass. We are blessed with an innate ability to “step aside,” and self-analyze. How often we do this without stepping back to see the whole and make a synthesis! Analysis without synthesis is stagnation, if not quagmire. Parts can be indefinitely torn into ever smaller bits; at some point one has to put the pieces together to test how the unit “runs...”

While reputedly we are frequently our “own harshest critics,” we also appear to be convinced (no matter how much we otherwise berate ourselves) that we are fundamentally “good,” i.e. of sound judgement, best intentions, proper morals, etc. And rules—whether they are “meant to be broken” or not—are for Other people—because, as for us, we could really do without…

…what’s religion really? …a set of do’s and don’ts? By definition religion is a system of faith and worship; by extension it is a code of ethics. In my view it may be individual or collective. While it might be perceived as arrogant to say, “I follow my own religion,” I find more understanding in such an assertion than in a claim that: “I am Catholic, Muslim, Jewish, Buddhist, Atheist…” Participants in a shared doctrine inevitably abide by their own highly individualized interpretation of it. Could it be otherwise?

Most people are born into a system of faith; I am no exception. I was raised Catholic by a religiously-devote superstitious maternal-grandmother; and simultaneously prompted to philosophical speculation by a spiritually-devote non-denominational, yet inherently Catholic, father. At the moment, I feel pleasantly in tune with the Infinite—I feel good when I go to church; and I feel good when I give thanks at home. I pray in my own way, communing with reflections of God that I find everywhere. I put greater emphasis on generally recognized accords: The Golden Rule (Do not do unto others, as you would not have done to you); Abstention from Judgement (Judge not lest thou be Judged); and the basic tenets of the Inca (Do not Lie, Do not Steal, Do not be Lazy).

One is tempted to just shrug and dismiss religion as a set of Prejudices when contemplating the assorted practices and rituals, prescriptions and prohibitions, and precepts. What does it mean to be “heathen?” or “chosen people?!” Having already signaled my own recognition of God as the sum of Everything and the Totality of Nothing, such exclusive phrases fill me with a distinctly sad realization—religion is not Divine. It is as profoundly human as our childish tendency to personify God/faith and locate It as separate from ourselves.

…does heaven and hell exist? …why would a loving God want his people to suffer? My viewpoint on this is, perhaps unsurprisingly, ambivalent! …what is in the afterlife? I’m sorry I cannot speak to this; I have no insight. But in our lifetimes, I contend that to a great extent we make our own happiness or misery by how we chose to perceive what we’ve got. Everything influences that lot—but aside from the limitations of our own “from-whence-begotten” Will (*ref. Schopenhauer), no one can force our Attitude towards it… Was it Malcolm X who said that he never felt as Free as when he found himself in prison? “No matter where you go, there you are,” right? In our mind is the lock; as well as the key. (And therein the demons and angels reside.)

To suggest much pain and suffering is borne by the lowly of society is not "inaccurate," yet nevertheless unjust… the well-to-do are plagued, too. Life doles out straws of fate with apparent indifference… internal conflict, disease, premature death visit anyone, anytime, anyplace. Sure the rich are in a position to put up a quixotic fight. They are battling windmills all the same… we can clearly see that the supposed antidotes that “money buys” are not guaranteed to work, nor is any amount of “good works,” nor “faith” in God.

Then it seems all that remains is a certain surrender, which tends to bring peace of mind—a declaration: “I do not understand; Thy will be done.” Because as a fact, it will: With us, or without us. We can resist and suffer all the more for it; or accept and go with the flow of it. Somehow others have noted that it helps to have (in all things) an attitude of Gratitude. The notion of a “loving God” might be dubbed in literary terms a grandiose "pathetic fallacy.” As I see it, God is Love as a noun, the whole of it, complete in and of itself—not giving to some and withholding from others. We, on the other hand, are granted (as share of it) Love as verb. Then the question is this: Am I willing to Love God (the entirety of It) unconditionally, without reservation—with warts and All?

It has been suggested in Philosophical texts that Evil must exist in order to “make real” our apparent freedom of choice. (Free will is obviously not truly free if we can not select from a fully stacked deck of cards.) I note that the fundamental limitation of our free will, described in the previous chapter, seems to undermine the statement somewhat. There is an underlying discord—whispered grievances of God “wanting or not wanting this or that,” in relation to our own plight; Burdening us, as it were, with Evil. In my estimation, our fundamental desire is not so much to be extrinsically Free to... as it is to be intrinsically Free from (fear, lack, need, etc.).

…does He/She not want to interfere with our business? I counter this assumption with the notion that it is not Our business vs. God’s; we follow in the same line of work. God goes about God’s business—inventing and reinventing. We are entirely a part of this process. A writerly metaphor begs itself: Each narrative plays itself out... There are endings that we do not like; but we cannot put the book down, being so intrinsically entangled in the plot. Good and Evil are moot if we accept (as I do) that there is only God (as the sum of the light and dark, the full and void; complete, thus completely neutral). One might say that there is no Evil other than that which our social mores, or personal biases, begin to deem as such.

(While not retracting from the previous position that Heaven-Earth-Hell are one, we might still, as an apt illustration, quote from The Bible, Matthew 16:19 “I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven. Whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.")

That is not to say that there are no wrong in the world, or consequential suffering. Once there is Choice, there is a range of selections; and as we can see full-well not every option provides the “greatest good” in outcome. Accordingly, we are not freed of individual or collective Responsibility. Indeed, I feel that we have tremendous Power, despite the insignificance we justifiably feel in the vast turmoil of Reality. We have Inertia; and that is a devastating force.

On a small scale we dread writer’s block, knowing how difficult it is to get a progressive momentum going! …All the worse of a blockade is formed when any contingent of our-kind (whether one man or a million) refuses to question social custom, and thereby obstructs the free flow of thought, which alone makes possible self-correction, balance, harmony—i.e. the sense of peace that we inherently seek out.

…does Satan and his so-called legion of demons exist? …Is religion just a clever man’s way of making sure we follow a set of rules because we humans are animals…? From the Hebrew, satan literally means “adversary” or “to oppose.” Every other creature on Earth dutifully obeys the laws of Nature, without apparent self-consciousness or resistance in that obeisance. Not so with Man; we know this deeply—through our painful awareness of our dim misleading intuition, lack of reliable instinct, and constant companion of Doubt. We seem to crave rules and guidance, while grappling with our gift of Freedom.

As suggested in the conclusion of the last chapter, only we among animals are granted the potentiality of standing in opposition to God’s propositions. Hence, Humanity is Satan; and it is we who form collectively the legion of demons. …Once again, I find our tendency to apply a displaced psychology. Not unlike when we bruise ourselves against the leg of a table, and curse it stupidly rather than ourselves, knowing acutely that our own inattention has led to the painful incident. We look to allocate some kind of blame beyond; unburden ourselves… It is not a problem of Religion or Sin; but of the hard work that we see in mobilizing and disciplining the flickering spirit within.

...what is Life really?

As best as I can see, Life is an unrelenting force. There is no Off button; only Go. We flip this or that switch in Nature, and the Motherboard just shifts to some alternate default mode, following a programming that we have absolutely no ability to decode. From the past to the future; from the inside, out; heaven, or hell—however we look at it— in our consciousness Life IS, and that's that. Infinitely. 

It is said there are only two facts in Life: we are born and we die. But even that statement begs doubt. There appears to be only the Unknown; so perhaps Life IS the UNKNOWABLE. And there is a disarming beauty in that statement. Why then do we feel compelled to judge and change things, as if we could "do better?" 

Dropping our hands to our sides in exasperation—on the basis of our perceived dubious circumstances—we ask in desperation:

...what then are we meant to do?

It seems we are all born with a deeply ingrained longing. It haunts us throughout our lives... though we can never really pin point what it is exactly that we want. We want, we want, we want... No, I don't think it's really Some thing to have...

It's as if we want to Be something... Something specific... but what? We seek something outside ourselves... and we scrape within... To no avail. Maybe instead it is a feeling that we seek?

Enigmatically, it could be very simply: Just To Be. At ease. Is that not when we feel the best? The most... free? Sitting, just sitting, like watching the sunset—without pangs of guilt. An Oriental poem that I memorized as a child comes to mind: 

"Sitting quietly, doing nothing; 

Spring comes, and the grass grows by itself." 

(I regret I've forgotten who it's by... but how beautiful, peaceful, freeing!)

When we can close our eyes and just enjoy a moment truly, we feel...closest to creation...to God... to the fullness of Eternity. Asking nothing, just assimilating. 

Yet most of the time, inside, we are so very ill-at-ease... Is that the flow of Life hounding us from within...? Momentum demanding constant change in all respects, but most importantly, I would suggest, in mental perspective. How sad it is that pure Appreciation is so pejoratively equated in our society with being idle, or worse, with "wasting time."

...why is Life so precious?

I think we instinctively feel that we do not belong to ourselves. We are quick to note, "I didn't ASK to be born!" (*To which my parents were just as quick to counter, How do you know? and indeed what recollection do we have of what happened before birth?) Yet at every moment, of every day, we have the distinct irritation of being pushed by forces that are not ours. We physically feel "discomfort" to greater or lesser extend at all times... it's that peculiar sensation of being alive. Pleasure of mind or body is always tainted by some kind of remorse, even if it's only our own ungrateful reflection that "it doesn't last."

Not belonging to ourselves parallels a wish for some external belonging that we tend to seek, which usually is associated with an urge to be of service to other. Sympathy and empathy are very human traits; but we seem to also fall into making undue comparisons among the lives of others. To assume that some lives are better than ours, is specious, as we do not know what burdens individuals really carry. Age-old fables wisely warn that trading lots with another usually brings us back to embrace our own sack of troubles. On the other side, pitying the fate of others can prove equally suspicious, as we do not know how they perceive their own lot. Indeed, hardship may be a source of strength, growth, personal satisfaction... however upsetting that may sound.

All of this touches on Pride and Vanity for sure; and even Envy, Avarice and Gluttony; not to mention Wrath and well... even Sloth, as we are so reluctant and slow to apply ourselves to deeper thought.

...is there a map or compass to lead us?

I suspect there is: and suggest that it is Us. Each of us individually knows what is fair... it's tattooed on our heart. We know how we would like to be treated. It goes beyond the Golden Rule even, to a more objective articulation (such as voiced by Immanuel Kant). Paraphrasing, the idea is to act so that the basis of your action might be applied as a Universal rule. Thus, Stealing is wrong not because what is stolen matters to us; but wrong because it leads to depravity and mistrust in any society as a whole... Lying is wrong, not because we care whether or not it is done to us, but because no one functions well in the tangles of deception.... even if it's just me deluding myself.

To be sure I don't know what The Meaning of Life is; and it would be awkward of me to presume what someone else's Purpose is; but I do, rightly or wrongly, have some sense in my own mind of how I perceive my human role in this ephemeral existence that we share. I'll note these reflections, in a few verses, as concluding thoughts:

ManKind

i am... God's Sidekick;

a Court Jester, the wizened Fool

a Valentine... Devil's Advocate...

a fallen Angel called upon

i am Eyes and Ears;

the persistent silent Question

the Audience that laughs... and sighs...

the Who echoing against the Dark

i'm with the I AM;

a Pinnochio that grows a heart

a Raison d'Etre... an After-thought...

the Life of the Party, giving Thanks for all we've got!