Sol's Inner Vault

We have no shortage of pundits and experts, just pick the topic. We hear from them constantly. They're everyone's life coaches, but we didn't hire them, nor can they be fired, inundating the airwaves with their unsolicited wisdoms and truisms. From various pundits we hear "There is no God-Time; they're both just convincing illusions." Or, "Our Republic, in grave danger, the other party is the egregious threat." Pundits often say anything but the obvious, like the fact that idiots in both parties are democracy's real threat, or like the entire American political process being so demeaning to our intrinsic humanity, contrary to solutions for social problems. So, try to tell my 71 year old knees that Time doesn't exist, after riding my bike all day. Or, my back, after breaking down my third water pallet for the morning! And, presuming for now, tell my soul there is no God, when I've lost all hope and good cheer. When I question the purpose o

Where do we start? As Scripture and believers direct, we must begin with Genesis. Typical objectivity has no relevance in this inquiry, facts are scarce and very oblique. Believers accept the divine authorship; they don't doubt. Inquiry science accepts nothing.  We have hard science facts proven by experiment, repetition, precision instruments, logic, mathematics, and physical laws the accuracy of which have been duplicated, demonstrated, and verified beyond rational challenge. Genesis "time" must not be typical or measured in ways we've come to comprehend.  Too many facts get in the way of Genesis, its accountability or literal accuracy. Perhaps that's the word. Accuracy equals both plausibility and believability with what we call knowledge. Faithless science only goes forward where the data goes, not biased by inclinations or story.  The puzzling quandary over the age of planet Earth, for example. The Bible’s genealogical records combined with the Genesis 1 acco

Back on the train, another week in Arizona with mom. Is it possible? Things are somehow better, even as it's all worse? A real enigma. Born from grief or harsh deliverance, still another day must begin. Nothing ever remains really except the next steps forward.  But it's no longer like before, an impervious illness controlling everything. We've learned how this monster operates: sudden fog of unfamiliar, pointless quarrels of confusion, the stealing away of all certainty, ambushed by strangers.  Now we tolerate it, much less fear. Expecting its daily onset, knowing what to ignore, we've reclaimed control over the household, all  loved ones on board, bonds intact, an injured family's resilient power.  We understand it won't be stopped or retreated, but neither will our caring ever stop. Nor will disease define our days, for the grander assembly of caring wins over pain, myriad designs of experience all drawn to frame the story within.

Imagine when all you know slides away, the seams of self unraveling, the reason for being somewhere, the rooms of reality shifting with fake walls and no safe corners, ceilings raising and lowering like a nightmare carnival tent, imagine you're the hapless guest today. Receding into pale distances, all your ties to common words and images, what do you need most? Reassurance. Something to count by, or any clue about direction and purpose; you grasp at anything. Mom's sense of her situation is an unyielding spectrum of extremes. Goes from "Leave me alone, nothing wrong, I'm fine." to  "I don't know what's going on. What am I doing?"  There is no map back to ourselves. There is no trail to find or even create. Lost in the fast firefalls of thought, connections crisscrossed and scrambled beyond any untangling, imagine how you're the observer now only hanging on to remember.

This morning I awakened from the rushing waters of sleep, the cool aquifers of dream all disappeared in a single moment thru the warm window light, thoughts wandering as if still looking for something, an unworried and peaceable search. Who knows what remains from the fleeting unconscious of slumber, the slow scenes of story, or glints and flickers of fast dramas? Very often nonsensical or puzzling, familiar or routine, unknowable connections thought to thought, image to image, meanings veiled beyond our grasp. Then, for whatever random turn, my thoughts go to this notion of how our best human traits aren't competitors, or ever need to be. How strong may coexist with kind, compassion and self-interest, how one value doesn't lessen the other.  No doubt there are worse places to be, awakening this morning from sleep's hidden chambers, grateful for every reason this is a typical Tuesday, another episode in this re-gifted light.

"Without humility there can be no humanity." ~ John Buchan What is humility except the kind self-reminder of my own smallness. The returning realization of my status as a mere speck of existence in time and space, a particle of life that breathes and feels with no knowledge or insight as to how it's all here, also no clue about why. Humility is the tap on the shoulder, the instant resizing of reality and my remarkable insignificance in this universe of endless mystery. Humility is a yardstick measuring the distant between us and God, yet it's a Creator's work close at hand that defines my comprehension of even the smallest pebble or a giant Sequoia. The splendor of creation becomes the backdrop of humility, across the cosmos and thru the wonder of nature's boundless beauty. Humility is realizing, again and again, my place in this conscious world, my position of witness, reverence, and discovery.