I’ve posted on the whole Circle of Life being broken and now the Washington Post (thanks to A Thinking Reed) is talking about the same thing. It’s more than just global warming or just extinction or just melting ice. It’s the feedback loop involving them all and how that loop is “breaking up, it’s breaking up” like Steve Austin’s plane.
Sphere: Related ContentArchive for the 'death' Category
Yes, arc, as in an incomplete circle. Can you tell The Lion King is now one of my daughter’s favorite movies?
Near the beginning of the movie, Mufasa explains life to Simba:
M: A King’s time as a ruler rises and falls like the sun. Everything you see exists together in a delicate balance. As King you need to understand that balance and respect all creatures, from the crawling ant to the leaping antelope.
S: But Dad, don’t we eat the antelope?
M: Yes, Simba, but let me explain. When we die, our bodies become the grass, and the antelope eat the grass. And so, we are all connected in the great circle of life
And this is part of the whole environment/ecology problem: we humans do not see ourselves as part of the “circle of life.” We see ourselves as special, elite, superior to all of nature. So much so, that we don’t even let our bodies give back to the earth — the earth that we rape and pillage and from which we take so much. We bury our bodies in coffins that insulate our rotting remains from nature.
Sure, we are special among God’s creatures, but we are still creatures and all creation “declares the glory of God” so if we get recycled into grass, we would still declare the glory of God — probably more effectively than we did as a human being!
Is this some sort of bodily resurrection thingy — some idea that we are helping God out by keeping our remains all neat and tidy in one place where he can find them? I think that if it really were, we’d mummify ourselves. Wasn’t that the whole Egyptian idea — preserve the body for the next life? But when you think about it, is there really much of a difference whether we end up a pile of bones in a coffin or a pile of bones in the dirt? We are still a pile of bones.
We may have been the culmination of God’s creation, but we are still a creation, and in that respect, no different than the rocks, trees, ants, or antelope. We need to put ourselves back into the circle — mentally and physically — before it’s too late.
Sphere: Related ContentDoes a single-ended eternity make sense? Our soul is eternal but from here on out. That’s not really eternal, is it?
Now, I’ve never heard anyone preach on where, exactly, our souls come from, but I would guess that most would say that God gives us our soul at conception or birth or sometime in there. That’s what makes us “human.” But where did God get that soul to give to us? Did he create it for me as I was being conceived or born or sometime in there?
Now, this soul of mine — as long as I’m on the “right” side of the fence and the “right” side of Jesus’ body at the Great J-Day — will live forever in God’s presence. But every single thing God has created — plants, animals, stars, galaxies, etc. — dies. Every single thing that does not die on its own will be destroyed when God creates the new heaven and new earth. So, if our souls were created for us, why will they not also be destroyed?
What if, as Eckhart says, our souls — or whatever you want to call our essential essence or being — has always and always will exist?
… whereby man may come most closely to God and wherein he may once more become like the original image as he was in God when there was yet no distinction between God and himself before God produced creatures.
Blessed are the pure in heart who leave everything to God now as they did before ever they existed.
God has no before nor after. God is neither this nor that.God is perfect simplicity. Prior to creatures, in the eternal now, I have played before the Father in his eternal stillness.
That is the real effect of original sin — separating us from God. But if I was born in sin and my soul was created when I was born then “I” have never known anything but separation from God. So, why do I have the urge to repair that separation? Why do I crave something I’ve never had and could never possibly understand?
Being born in sin means that my soul, which was and always had been with God, is now separated from God. And that’s why the Holy Spirit (as I talked about in my previous post) can work in us and remind us of what it was like being not separated from God. We can only be reminded of something we once new.
Sphere: Related ContentYou can really learn a lot from a one year old. My daughter has a cold — runny nose, juicy sneezes, etc. Occasionally she will get a little fussy or cranky but for the most part she acts the same as when she is not sick. I can still make her smile and laugh. She still listens to stories. She still crawls around on the floor and plays.
Unlike me! Most of us shut down when we are sick or have headaches or other pains. We don’t smile or laugh. We want to be left alone. We want the world to know that we are miserable. And if we do allow any interaction it must be perfectly clear that we are allowing it at great sacrifice to ourselves.
Stephen Levine, in Who Dies? talks about sickness as a dress rehearsal for death. From the chapter titled “Be Also Ready” (emphasis mine):
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In a way, it seems strange that we are so unprepared for death, considering how many opportunities we have to open to what is unexpected or even disagreeable. Each time we don’t feel well, each time we have the fly or a kidney stone or a pain and stiffness in the back, we have the opportunity to see that sooner or later some pain or illness is going to arise that won’t diminish but will increase until it displaces us from the body. We can use each such situation as an extraordinary opportunity to practice the death chant, to practice Gandhi’s closeness with God. We are reminded again and again of the process we are. Continually opportunities arise to practice letting go of this solidness, to tune to the ongoing process, to sense the spaciousness in which it’s all unfolding.
Why wait until the pain is too great to focus the mind? Why not use each moment of sickness, each flu, each cold, each slight injury, as a reminder to let go, to open to the intenisty arising?
When pain or sickness arises I see there is the option to open to it, not holding or pushing it away, not blocking it, not intensifying it. When I open to it as a teacher it no longer reinforces identification with “the sufferer,” “the victim of circumstances,” It’s just what is. And as I try to open to it, I see how it is a perfect preparation for whatever might come next, a deeper letting go. It shows me how I hold to any expectation that life has to be any way at all. Being sick or accidentally hitting my thumb with a hammer becomes preparation for the impossible, for dying, for living in the next unknown moment of life.
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