The older I get, the more miraculous it all becomes. With the perspective of age, we realize how haphazard it all is. And how short is our time here!
Bill always quizzes me on the facts in This Day in History in The Boston Globe. Yesterday, the question was, When was the first transcontinental telephone call? My mind careened wildly from various plot points - the civil war, telegraph, Thomas Edison, ‘What hath God wrought’, forward and back, 19th century? 20th? eventually landing on 1891. The answer was 1915. My father was born in 1912, my mother in 1918. That used to seem like a long time ago.
Bill and I went on to reminisce about phone bills. Remember phone bills? A monthly listing of long distance calls. Evening calls were more expensive. I used to call home collect, before 6PM. As pre-arranged, Mother would refuse the call, then call me back, to save a few bucks.
We tell our grandchildren about life in the 1960’s and 70’s. They can hardly understand what we’re talking about. They are perplexed about phone booths and operators and rotary phones attached to the wall with long spiral-y cords you had to stretch out as far as possible so you could have some privacy in the other room.
All this to say that time speeds by. We live the lives presented to us in the time given us. I am often struck at the accident of birthplace, birth family. What would my life have been like in other shoes?
We forge ahead, do what we think we should or shouldn’t at any given juncture. We walk through many lives, to quote Stanley Kunitz. We press on. Youth bestows us with the blessing of immortality and infallibility.
We know better now.
In Man’s Search for Meaning, Viktor Frankl spoke of suffering, in his particular case, in death camps, at the hands of the Nazis. He knew that suffering was inevitable, but maintained we could choose how to cope with it, find meaning in it and move forward with renewed purpose. Frankl’s theory, known as logotherapy, from the Greek logos (meaning) - maintains that our primary drive is not pleasure, but the discovery and pursuit of what we personally find meaningful.
I do know that my suffering (silly in comparison with the suffering in the world) is what has made me who I am. I had to find the path and find the humor, perhaps the greatest gift of all.
Here’s a slant on the meaning of life and where we find it. I wrote a piece a few years ago - a fun jab at all of it - people, religion, the meaning of life. Then, this past November, I participated in Nancy Stohlman’s FLASHNANO, an online challenge to write a piece of Flash fiction or non-fiction. (Flash writing has to be short, which requires great precision of language. No wasted words! Beauty is the purgation of superfluities, as ol’ Michelangelo used to say.) We received daily prompts to get us going. This particular prompt was to rewrite a previous piece, this time incorporating an orange balloon. Here’s what happened:
Father O’Flaherty ambles in, rocking from side to side on aching hips, landing safely at the head of the table peopled with older women, a few men and one young man in a grungy parka, all flipping pages and splitting hairs now about the phrase for many are called but few are chosen.
Outside, the church fair is in full swing.
A large woman with long, lifeless hair wonders what it means to get the call and can parents who choose not to have their child baptized be saved.
A cheery lady, a local librarian, chimes in sincerely about the call and wonders if the large woman means can the parents be saved? or the children? A quiet, soft woman with glorious white hair and a tic asks if there is really a long, beautiful dinner table in Heaven and that you need to be invited, otherwise there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.
A cheer arises from the fair below. Perhaps the raffle?
The young man keeps interrupting with probing questions like, who was it, the prophet Isiah? who saw rain clouds in the distance…isn’t that similar to when you accept the grace?
Father O’Flaherty grits his teeth. His back is hurting. He resents the street boy’s persistence, answering curtly, the phrase gnashing of teeth is found in several places in the Bible and is used exclusively in reference to the final judgment of sinners. It is combined with either weeping or wailing. The Greek phrase for gnashing of teeth literally means grinding one’s teeth together.
Father often reminds everyone that he has studied Hebrew and Greek. The women are in awe. Yes, Father, no, Father, thank you, Father, wonderful, Father.
Father enjoys this attention and adulation. This is not really a discussion of the bible. It is Father O’Flaherty holding forth.
Parka Boy presses on, Why did Elijah pray for rain seven times? And did his servant really come back and say, ‘I saw a little cloud about the size of a man’s hand rising from the sea?’ Did it really rain right after that?
Father looks down at his bible, feigning patience.
The young man continues, So Ahab went to eat and drink. But Elijah climbed to the top of Mount Carmel and bowed low to the ground and prayed with his face between his knees.
Father O’Flaherty would prefer to tell stories about his own life.
The women want to know if faith literally moves mountains, or how long someone suffers in Purgatory. Father assures them that the mountain was a metaphor and that Purgatory was invented by St. Augustine.
Yes Father, no Father, thank you Father.
After a pregnant pause, an older man with a few days’ stubble and a friendly face of your local old-fashioned grocer, starts to speak in a stage whisper, slowly, slowly, searching for words.
“When I get a glimpse of the created world and how very small we are, (he holds up both hands, pincers his thumbs to his forefingers and squints his kind eyes, as a sign of the infinitesimal reality of our existence in the universe), how can we do anything but be in awe and love one another?”
The room falls silent. A huge orange balloon floats slowly past the window from the church fair below.
What a fabulous story with equally wonderful drawings/paintings to go with them. The orange balloon drifting by is my favorite!
Thank you , dearest Sittle. Lister! Our father, who art in heaven(true statement) usually had the answer only after he bought you some Kenny Pandy, which we were allowed to look at , to smell to feel, BUT Never to Eat til he said( yes he was the prototype for the “marshmallow test for success”) all of this impotant and funny stuff took place on this weekly trip to the DUMP And as far as I can see it was indeed all the preparation that was, and is the ticket to heaven. Thank you Grampa