Deer Park United Methodist Church Blog

A Late Night Ramble

This past weekend I went on a two day camping trip into the Byers Peak Wilderness with some friends who I didn’t realize until just now are actually some “long-time” companions of mine.  These people I’ve been sitting and talking and walking to different places with for almost a decade now, stayed up late under the stars, sharing their experiences in life by the fire with me; they walked up and down dirt trails in search of new places with me; and they strolled along rushing waters with me, laughing at my jokes, and showing me how to catch fish.

As I type these words, I realize I won’t have the company of these faces forever. As long as I’ve been a part of each of the lives I just spoke of, there will come a day when they’re only referenced with a smile, as something from the past, now gone. We all know as we grow older, that these things happen not necessarily by will, but by the natural way of things. Some people pass away before your paths would have later parted; some move to new places to make new friendships with new people; some start families, and start lives separate from the things and people they knew before; and some just sort of quietly fade off into the distance, before you realize far later that they’ve gone.

Life is always changing, and it does strange things to your mind to think of that terrible and beautiful fact of existing.  Feelings of depression, and gratitude, and love, and loss flood you all at once, and you don’t really know what to do with it.

Personally, my first reaction is to clutch.  My first thought is to hold tighter, and try to stop life from moving those things which are close to my mind and heart, away from me—concocting some plan to do all I can not to allow those faces and things and places to go.  But doing that, I realize in clearer moments, is like trying to grip water with your hand. It’s impossible. Life moves outside of our ability control, and trying to fight against that, and manipulate that reality to work in our favor is probably one of the more purposeless and wasteful ways we can spend the short and blessed moments of our lives. Of course, that still doesn’t stop us, right?

I’ve found lately that I’ve been adamantly staying awake late into the night, despite my boredom and exhaustion. I’m doing it even now as I write this blog. Tonight was the first time I allowed myself to wonder why, and one of the initial thoughts which popped to my mind was the possibility that I might be subconsciously fearing the progression of time.

Life has been strangely wonderful in recent days, and knowing life changes sooner than we’re usually given warning, or any kind of notice, I’ve been somehow plagued with a fear of losing this new found happiness to the unknown moments waiting ahead. Moments which hold the potential to alter this beautiful bliss I accidentally stumbled upon not too long ago.

But as I think of this, I can’t help but feel embarrassed by the blatant ridiculousness of it all. I recently found happiness, and I’ve somehow managed to turn even that into misery by dwelling in fear of losing the good thing which is (for the moment) still my blessing to enjoy.

In fearing losing the happiness I now have, I cease to enjoy the beautiful moment for what it is. By dwelling in my fear of not having it longer, I’ve already lost that thing I’m so afraid of losing.

Being human is a real pain in the glutes, isn’t it?

This is a problem our species has been dealing with for a while. Ancient Buddhist and Hindu religious philosophies are almost entirely based on this concern, actually. Christian spirituality as well speaks to these things. In all, is the idea that we need to let life be what it is, when it is. To accept the nature of our days, and to stop ourselves from grasping, and clutching, and worrying, because in doing this we only bring our fears to reality unnaturally sooner than they would have come on their own, and we isolate ourselves from truly experiencing the moments of our lives as they occur, dwelling constantly outside of reality, in the fictional realms of the past and future. This is paraphrasing and generalizing these three very unique belief systems, but it expresses basic truths found in each of them.

As a minister, I can’t help but think about the nature of God, compared to ours. There is nothing in the universe which remains constant except for the totality of eternity.* That Totality I believe is what we use the word “God” to describe. Then I start to wonder, if God is in all things, and all things are smaller parts comprising this totality—this eternity—does anything ever really die? Does anything ever really end? Or do we just stop seeing it?

Do we just become somehow isolated from our experience of it, in this time, and in this space? And do we expedite this experiential isolation, by premature mourning our loss of the sense of it?

Alright. That’s it. I’m going to bed.

*For the specifically minded, in saying this, of course, I’m speaking of particular manifestations of objects and events and excluding basic principles of calculation we can apply to these manifestations, (i.e. the speed of light).