Sol's Inner Vault

What is just beyond the next walkway? Or, just beyond the next falling sun? What is just beyond the next expectation, the next corner to turn, just beyond the next step, just beyond a preview, what is it all coming to, what will we see? What is there just beyond you and me?

There is truth deemed universal, and truth deemed only transitory. The intrinsic problem about "Truth": there must still be an interpreter of the sacred words, Scripture, and language meaning. We are all personal interpreters. Ascribing specific references to commonly read words- that's how truth becomes relative to the teller, and to the different minds comprehending, striving to know.

Allegory: if I am a boat's skipper, do I care what color my anchor might be? Do I care if it's forged from this iron or that steel? Do I care that it's a traditional hook shape, or something else entirely? What does a skipper need from an anchor? That it works. Securely tied off, heavy enough, and instantly available. If I am a mortal navigating life from day-to-day, from where do I draw my strength to continue thru the difficult and worse days? What do I need from my faith? That it works. That it's tied off by my intrinsic cords of personal values, the eternally tethered connection: 10 Commandments, Golden Rule, Four Noble Truths, all work to anchor my character, temper my passion, and tame my worst or most selfish tendencies. Differences or similarities, narrow or wide lanes of beliefs, stories, narratives, interpretations, translations, or claims to exclusively correct knowledge thru Scriptural defining- all of these less important distinctions are as the various

Many may challenge the notion, it's understood. It confounds all the established beliefs, the variously pointed paths of faith. But, for me, there is a glorious, nameless majesty, a royally unreligous crown of mystery which represents the limitless, universal experience, constantly whirling matrix of questions far beyond a horizon of knowledge. There is, to me, a beauty most viscerally felt in this mystery, unequaled by any human story of imaginative gods and devils and mortals with living souls. There is this drive within to know the real fabric or algorithm or equation or Scripture or vision or truth reveal without doubt, rendering faith obsolete or unnecessary- but then, where to go for our strength? Would knowing more be a new source? We cannot ever know enough to then leap out of our ego's mirror, so is the desire to know itself a trap? Consciousness at its core query,  the silent, enduring grandeur of our common existance, the way nothing is ever answered forever, all

The countless lives behind windows, every one so anonymous and precious, immersed in stories uniquely drawn, unknown by their window frames alone, the spectrum of mortal experience played out in rooms full of days and years, unscripted moments in-between, Venetian blind shadows of indoor souls going about their sundry routines, unspoken rituals of identity and relationship, or the windows that hide the horrors of private hells, or cursed prisons of gloom, nightmares the neighbors hear and ignore, or the sobbing child, crouched and trembling in the dark corner, or the wife's face burning with shame from a fresh and angry slap, or the massively silent, glacial pain of loneliness, windows of the heart forever nailed shut, or those empty windows that reveal nothing at all to passersby, to an outside world too Tick-Tocked to care anyway, or cracked windows of brutal negligence, quiet terrors, subtle tortures of circumstance, or the dusty windows on the sides of buildings of wasted dream

Spread evenly, roots to leaves. Pholem, xylem, and cambium. Hope, loyalty, and perseverance. Just as the dead heartwood  within the tree is protected by  only a few thin layers of living  fibers, and the tree is kept alive- So is the soul's earliest pain  protected  from mortal futility by  the irrepressible hopefulness of  purpose- memory dims the rest.  

Perhaps, it's understandably upsetting for some to consider: although far more cerebrally evolved, we are still just animals. More specifically, mammals, homo-sapien mammals. Simply stated, we are apes, human apes. So, does this answer all possible questions? Not at all, and only creates even more mystery, more questions to answer and connect to a remarkably greater picture of our partially discernable life and world. I hear my many friends of faith saying some version of "Hold on, science explains very little. What about God's plan thru the Word,  unsaved souls vs. eternity, the coming final victory over evil?" Well, this is one ape who wouldn't disagree, I'd welcome such a victory, thru any means or reality. Yet, have long suspected but with no persuasive evidence, just a natural hunch: loyal faith and dogmatic science may not ever intersect anywhere, but instead both represent opposite parallel universes of endless numerical varience and possibility. E

It's difficult to remember to take the extra moment to consider what may be possible, often something unlikely. But it can also be something typical. Simple example is the horn on your steering wheel, how you realize too late it's a senior you just startled. Awareness has a brief half-life. Remember phone booths? Of course not. One day, banged on the glass, in a hurry to make my call. Who else turns around but Milton Berle, holding up an index finger to my young impatience. No less the quick fool, the ego leads like a bumbling clown stumbled out of the tiny car, first of dozens to follow. Everyone included in that old stunt. Difficult to remember how moments define the mood, attitude lights the candle, patience sets the best table. Who pauses anymore to raise a glass?

If I were a ponderous purple onion, you could peel to my core, finding nothing new or more, nothing terrible, nor wondrous.  If I were a child's wooden train, I'd turn back around sixty years again, remembering it from the smoke and sounds it never made.  If I were a darkened alley past midnight, staying out of helicopter light, no shadows to trust beyond those that move too fast.  Somehow our sun keeps its secrets burning on, while trillions of black holes draw in the churning dust from every ancient universe. The background glow still seen, tracking each of us from within, no one may know their destiny's way, nor that fateful final day. When, out goes  the light in a rude bum's rush, a moment then gone, stars colluding in their solitude, nothing personal, all along.