What's Worse Than Death?

 ...gracious and eternal death who permits departure...

The book/discussion group I’m in is currently reading zombie fiction and a collection of philosophical essays.  In our first meeting we talked about and defined some terms and ideas.  What is a zombie?  Are zombies human?  Are zombies evil?

We’re a mixed group, some with little to no pop culture knowledge of zombies and vampires.  Others have quite of lot of TV, movies and literature under our belts.  The driving question is why are we so fascinated with the undead? What does it say about our beliefs and spirituality in this modern world?  We’re focusing on zombies at the moment but plan to discuss vampires later as their own group.

A friend at work simplified it in one fell-swoop.  “It’s because cannibalism is the ultimate taboo.”  I think that is true to a certain extent, but it doesn’t explain all of it.    

Last week, we started our discussion by working on a definition of spirituality, what does it mean to be spiritual?  We also talked about soul and afterlife.  This matters because the philosophical essay we'd just read was about the "Badness of Undeath."  Meaning, why is being dead better than being undead.  Obviously, if you believe in heaven, you want to be there, enjoying your death in a new pleasant form of existence.  Being undead means that you are just back here again as this unthinking, falling apart, rotting body that shambles around trying to eat people.   

There are a lot of theological problems associated with becoming undead.  

We also explored the idea that zombies function in two ways: as metaphor and as plot device to advance a message.  Metaphor = science gone wrong.  Plot device for we can’t trust the government not to kill or damage us with their chemicals, vaccines etc. therefore government = bad.

I think our fascination points to things even bigger.  Fear of death, uncertainty of afterlife, ambiguous messages about soul, refusal to think for ourselves about these things, the idea that it doesn't matter what I've done or been in this life I might still be a brain-eating zombie.  I don’t know for sure, but I know that it leads to me to think about things worse than death, and the poem by Sharon Olds  Things That Are Worse Than Death

If you can't think of anything, ask the next zombie or vampire you meet.

Blind Faith Scares Me

Isn’t it about time that we review and reconsider the Bible’s translations and language.  What we know now definitely suggests that many words and phrases have not been accurately translated from the original Greek.  Take a word like messiah, which is the transliteration of a Hebrew term, Mashiach. The New Testament (Greek) equivalent to the word messiah is christos, and both terms mean "the anointed one."   It also has hints of chosen, promised.  After Jesus’ death, the early Christian movement took the word christos and made it Christ to refer to Jesus.

In that vein, I pass this along.  It is yet another compelling reason for why we MUST be able to think critically about the sources of our beliefs.   Blind adherence to anything is ignorant and offensive.  It does not serve God, and it does not advance the truest messages of religious beliefs.

Is Evangelical Christianity Having a Great Gay Awakening?  by Cathleen Falsani

“In his new book Fall to Grace: A Revolution of God, Self and Society, Jay Bakker, the son of Jim Bakker and the late Tammy Faye Messner, gives clear and compelling answers to my nagging questions.

Simply put, homosexuality is not a sin, says Bakker, 35, pastor of Revolution NYC, a Brooklyn evangelical congregation that meets in a bar.

Bakker, who is straight and divorced, crafts his argument using the same "clobber scriptures" (as he calls them) that are so often wielded to condemn homosexuals.

"The simple fact is that Old Testament references in Leviticus do treat homosexuality as a sin ... a capital offense even," Bakker writes. "But before you say, 'I told you so,' consider this: Eating shellfish, cutting your sideburns and getting tattoos were equally prohibited by ancient religious law.

"The truth is that the Bible endorses all sorts of attitudes and behaviors that we find unacceptable (and illegal) today and decries others that we recognize as no big deal."

Leviticus prohibits interracial marriage, endorses slavery and forbids women to wear trousers. Deuteronomy calls for brides who are found not to be virgins to be stoned to death, and for adulterers to be summarily executed.

"The church has always been late," Bakker told me in an interview this week. "We were late on slavery. We were late on civil rights. And now we're late on this."

Examining the original Greek words translated as "homosexual" and "homosexuality" in three New Testament passages, Bakker (and others) conclude that the original words have been translated inaccurately in modern English.

What we read as "homosexuals" and "homosexuality" actually refers to male prostitutes and the men who hire them. The passages address prostitution -- sex as a commodity -- and not same-sex, consensual relationships, he says.”

Cathleen Falsani is author of Sin Boldly: A Field Guide for Grace, The Dude Abides: The Gospel According to the Coen Brothers and The God Factor: Inside the Spiritual Lives of Public People.

Oh, My Little Birdie

I have a head cold.  I’m stuffy, but I can breathe through my nose just fine.  My ears are plugged.  I feel tightness in my head.  I have a sore throat, and I’m out of breath and weak.  None of this would particularly contribute to me contemplating my own death, except that I recently experienced perhaps the worst headache I’ve ever had, and it came on just 24 hours after another unbelievably terrible headache.

Now, I get headaches not infrequently, and I have really bad headaches sometimes.  I have not been diagnosed with migraines, but I understand what they are. I’ve had headaches that made me feel sick to my stomach and want to pull my hair out.  The nearly-migraine kind where light hurts and idea of hitting myself with a hammer has fair appeal.  I normally just lie down and sleep it out with an ice bag on my neck.

The night before I had toughed it out in the living room, covered up with a blanket all evening, sipping ginger ale, before my husband made me take a pain reliever/sleeping pill and go to bed at 9:00.  I was crying from the pain and feeling sorry for myself, and when I laid down I had a panic attack and couldn’t breathe.  Little did I know that it was just a warm up for the next day.

This most recent headache was the mother of all that, a black hole of pain sitting in my forehead and behind my right eye.  I left work at 3:00 and was in bed by 3:30 having ingested an ibuprofen and settled the ice gel pack on my neck and shoulder.  Neither helped, but I slept until 6:00 when my daughter woke me.  She needed a ride uptown to buy poster board for school.  I roused up, put on my coat and a pair of clogs, and we set off.  She is unaccustomed to and not supposed to drive my truck (for insurance reasons), otherwise I would have made her do the driving

My hearing was muted in my right ear, and I had to shield my right eye because light was unbearable.  We made it home.  I took an Excedrin and went back to bed at 6:30.  That was when I started contemplating death.

I think I have a pretty high pain tolerance.  I’ve been through labor and also three increasing painful attacks leading up to trip to the ER on New Year’s Day in Mankato revealing that I had a kidney stone.  On the pain scale I rate labor and kidney stone nearly equal.  The headache comes in third, so lying in bed, upset stomach, blinding pain behind my eye, it’s really no wonder that I started thinking dark thoughts.  Maybe I have an aneurysm.  Maybe it’s a brain tumor.  I was applying pressure to my forehead and covering my eye with my left hand and clutching the comforter with my right, crying, sobbing in pain, trying to breathe and finding it really difficult. 

If you can catch the aneurysm early enough, it can sometimes be fixed.  A brain tumor, though, that’s all kinds of unknown.  What kinds of scans do they do?  I was seeing myself with no hair, which doesn’t really bother me.  But what about the radiation and/or chemotherapy.  How bad does that feel?  How much does it all cost?  I don’t want to leave my family in debt.  I don’t want to ruin their lives with my pain and illness and expensive treatments. 

I feel like my husband would learn to be OK if I died.  I think my daughter would have a really bad time of it.  She’s just about to turn 16.  Emotionally, people can recover, but the money and the debt afterward . . . I don’t want that kind of struggle for them.  Even the hardship of coping with someone who is ill, caring for them and still trying to live and work.  I know people do it all the time, but that doesn’t make it easy.

I have thought many times, is this it?  Will today be the day?  For some reason usually when I’m driving, I glance at my right shoulder and ask that question.  It helps me settle my mind. 

“There are many levels of meditation on death. A simple one is to imagine that a little bird is on your shoulder. When you wake up in the morning, you ask the little bird, "Will this be my last day, little bird?" There's a way to do it that is very superficial, but when you think about it, a wisdom arises within you. You then ask the question, "Am I living the life I want to live?" That is the second question that you should ask. This is very superficial, but it is a deeper way to meditate, by asking yourself again, "Am I ready to die?" It's not to make yourself afraid, it's not to make yourself paralyzed or overwhelmed with fear, but by thinking of death - there are several depths and several techniques, depending upon the nature of the problems - it helps people to get stronger, wiser, and more and more realistic toward life, and helps people to enjoy more of the beauty of life.”

I was able to breathe finally and to find tiny spaces where I could relax a little.  Eventually the pain began to subside, and by the time my husband checked on me again around 9:00, the headache was mostly gone.  Today, it’s not a tumor or an aneurysm. 

I feel the little bird though it is almost weightless.  It sees me with a dark, round eye.  I never imagine it with feathers of any specific color.  The little beak opens and closes, but it’s completely silent.  

Grammar of Gratitude

In November 2009, I attended a weekend-long retreat at Prairiewoods Franciscan Spirituality Center in Hiawatha, IA.  The nuns there are Franciscan Sisters of Perpetual Adoration, and the retreat center is ecologically thoughtful, homey and warm, restful and deeply spiritual.

“Prairiewoods Franciscan Spirituality Center is founded on an incarnational theology rooted in the Gospel life of Jesus that sees God as present and active in this world. . . . We believe that our God is here among us and that Earth and all of creation are sacramental in nature, signifying in the presence of the Divine. Accordingly, Prairiewoods opens its doors and its 70 acres of woods and prairie for the spiritual benefit of all who come.”

I went alone, was given a beautiful, corner room in the guest dormitory building, joined about 15 other women (and one man) for a contemplative weekend.  I am surprised how often I cast my thoughts back there.  With so little effort I recall the flavors of their soups and breads, the blue darkness and glow of candlelight in dining room, the sound of our chanting voices and the screeing hawk answering us from far overhead, how graceful I felt moving in meditative rhythms on the grass that frosty morning.  I hope to go again this year sometime.

But this blog is not really about that weekend, it’s about 2011.  I am 43 and overweight and acutely aware of it.  My cholesterol is on my mind, as well as my blood sugar, noisy joints, a tetchy kidney and various other little physical reminders.  I will not be happier if I lose weight, but I will feel better, and I will do myself lasting good, so I resolve to exercise and eat better and be mindful of myself.  But this blog is not really about that either.  

Last week I received my newsletter from Prairiewoods, and the woman there who buys books for their bookstore had a great article about spiritually literate New Year’s resolutions.  With credit to Frederic and Mary Ann Brussat, here are those resolutions:

1.      I will live in the present moment.  I will not obsess about the past or worry about the future.

2.      I will cultivate the art of making connections.  I will pay attention to how my life is intimately related to all life on the planet.

3.      I will be thankful for all the blessings in my life.  I will spell out my days with a grammar of gratitude.

4.      I will practice hospitality in a world where too often strangers are feared, enemies are hated, and the “other” is shunned.  I will welcome guests and alien ideas with graciousness.

5.      I will seek liberty and justice for all.  I will work for a free and fair world.

6.      I will add to the planet’s fund of goodwill by practicing little acts of kindness, brief words of encouragement and manifold expressions of courtesy.

7.      I will cultivate the skill of deep listening.  I will remember that all things in the world want to be heard, as do the many voices inside me.

8.      I will practice reverence for life by seeing the sacred in, with and under all things of the world.

9.      I will give up trying to hide, deny or escape from my imperfections.  I will listen to what my shadow side has to say to me.

10.  I will be willing to learn from the spiritual teachers all around me, however unlikely or unlike me they may be.

Evil in my Back Yard

Most bad ideas seem like good ideas at the time they’re unfolding.  I have a ton of 1977 motor home parked on my back lawn to support this statement.

Summer, two years ago, we were looking for a camper, and my friend got a lead on an RV in Hartley.  The guy wanted $3000 for it, a self-contained class C motor home.  My parents loaned us the money, and we drove up to Hartley on a Sunday, I think it was the weekend before Labor Day weekend.  At the time, we did not have a vehicle that could pull a camper, so this seemed like a good choice for us.

It was ~30 years old, had 80,000+ miles on it and some hail damage but otherwise was in pretty good shape, all things considered.  The owner, an older man, had worked on it himself, replace the battery and alternator, got it cleaned up and running.  He cautioned that we should unhook the battery if we planned to leave it sitting for long periods of time, but he and his wife had traveled all over in it, even pulled a jeep with it.  We took it for a drive.  Everything seemed OK.  We offered the guy $2100, and he took it!    

Suckers, er, proud owners of a motor home, we started the 3 ½ hour drive home.

After an hour or so on the road, with me driving lead in the car, and my husband, our daughter and our dog in the motor home, he started flashing his lights at me and gesturing I should pull over.  I did.  When he pulled in behind me I could hear the noise.  A steady, rhythmic clanging.  We looked under the hood, couldn’t see anything.  Let’s just keep going I suggested, and we drove on to the next town and pulled into a bank parking lot.  I called my dad in Minnesota, and he listened over the phone.  His assessment: the fan is hitting something.  My husband crawled under the front end but couldn’t get a good enough look.  Let’s just keep going I suggested again.  We can make it home.

We made it another half an hour before stopping.  My husband was getting really worried.  We crept on through Fort Dodge and stopped again along Hwy 169 within view of Hwy 30.  It was getting dark.  We had no tools.  I drove back to town and bought a flashlight.  We thought about abandoning it there for the night, but decided to drive it back into town where we were fortunate enough to be able to leave it parked behind the Casey’s.   We finally made it home around 10:00 pm.

My husband took Monday off, got some advice on what to look for, bought some tools, drove back to Fort Dodge and fixed the beast.  The alternator had not been properly bolted in place.  It had shifted, and the fan was indeed hitting it.  He got a jump because the battery wouldn’t hold a charge.  He left his car behind Casey’s and drove home.  We drove back up that night to get his car and drove home again separately.

It was nearly a year before we licensed it, and that cost over $300.  We had it into the shop to get the battery replaced and have it checked over.  They also repaired the fuel line.  That cost ~$100.  We took it camping once, a year ago over Labor Day weekend.  We drove to a campground less than 10 miles from home.  Actually, my husband drove the motor home and followed me as I drove our new truck, one that can tow.  The speedometer doesn’t work, and the odometer is disconnected.  We had to buy some new electrical cords to plug in, but we had good weekend camping.  It was fun, but it was difficult.  We knew that this motor home business was not going to be good for us.  We parked it in the driveway, and this past spring we started looking for a small camper that we could pull with our truck.  In April we purchased a beautiful little 19-foot travel trailer, and we used it several time over the summer, including a week-long vacation camping in Minnesota and Illinois.  We love it.

We hate the motor home.  It has become an evil presence in our back yard.  We had to move it off the driveway and park it in the grass close to the alley by our garden.  It sat all summer.  It killed all the grass.  We have signs in it,  For Sale $2500 OBO.  We’ve had interest.  I fret over it sitting there all winter, and so we decided to at least drive it up onto wood slabs for the winter.  Chalk up one more fiasco, one more point to the motor home. 

It took more than a half an hour to get it started so that it would stay running while he put it in gear.  He backed up onto the boards and immediately slid off.  Over and over and over.  We jockeyed positions, tried again, spun the wheels, burned rubber and never made it on those boards again.  We were shouting at each other.  The air was filled with the smell of fuel and exhaust and hot wood and hot rubber.  The neighbors were certainly wondering what the hell was going on.  We gave up in the interest of saving our marriage.

What seemed like a good idea has really not turned out that way, and we still owe my parents $500.  Hopefully when spring comes we can turn our luck around a little.  We plan to license it again and get it fixed up so that it runs better with a working odometer.  I am optimistic that we can sell it.  We just have to keep going.

What Happens Next

I am the oldest of three.  My sister and I are 16 months apart in age.  My brother and I are 6 years apart.   

My brother and sister have never had an especially friendly relationship.  When she was in high school, they had a fight just before school pictures, and she clawed his face.  He had scabs in his photo that year.  

For a long time, my sister competed with me and belittled or ignored my accomplishments.  I learned to live with and not be too sad about it.  When my husband and I announced our engagement, my sister and her now-husband decided that they were getting married too, a month before us.  Our happy news that we were expecting a baby was met by silence and stares.  If I’d said that I’d decided to sell a piece of my brain, she would have been more interested.  It turned out that my daughter, my brother’s daughter and my sister’s son were all born in the same year. 

A lot of years have gone by since those days, with their usual ups and downs.  I’ve had really good times with my sister and brother both.  It hasn’t all been a struggle.

But until recently, my brother and sister had not spoken meaningfully in four years.  No holidays together, no birthday celebrations, no summer gatherings.   It was hard to cope with at first.  Beside their own anger and issues with each other, I had to deal with my sister being mad with me because I wasn’t categorically on her side against my brother.  

Over Halloween this year they had a conversation though and apparently have been talking since then.  We’ll all be spending time together on Christmas Eve at my sister’s house this year.  She and her husband have two children.  Our parents will be there.  My husband and our daughter and I will be there.  My brother, his three children (by two different mothers), his girlfriend and two of her children will be there.   

Suddenly I can’t breathe.  My shoulders are in knot, and my jaw’s clenched just thinking about the potential for disaster, making a poorly timed sarcastic comment, not acting interested enough about her trip to Fiji .  I’m fretting over what to bring that correctly fits the parameters she’s issued for food, and I’m worrying about slippers because we’re not allowed to wear our shoes on her wood floors.

And then there’s a tiny space where I manage to inhale, deeply, and when I exhale the space opens up further.  In the gap I see my fears and anxieties for what they are.  Shadows.  There’s no reason to seize up, control, grasp or push away.  I breathe in all the fear and stress that so many people are feeling this time of year.  I breathe out calm. 

I'm not afraid of what happens next.  I get to spend an evening with my dear siblings, come what may.

Her Loving Disapproval . . . or Mixed Emotions Are the Strongest

I’m feeling a little guilty after my last diatribe where my friend J. commented that she found it sad.  I have to wonder if she means pathetic or just disheartening.  Either way, I feel bad that I so often give her reason to feel sorry for me and make comments like “Hmmmmm,” which I know is how she politely expresses her disapproval of my beliefs.

For clarification, I was jaded, sarcastic and humbug-ish the last time I wrote.  I have the right to feel that way sometimes.  I am neither atheist nor anti-Christian.  Jesus is one of my favorite teachers, a figure I admire very much and also feel extremely sorry for.  

We were decorating our Christmas tree this week and found the little cut glass “Jesus people” and also a wood-carved nativity scene.  I am glad to put them out in my display along with an Scandinavian-styled Santa, a porcelain sleigh with a festive floral arrangement, numerous holiday-themed candle holders and a caroler my daughter made from a toilet paper roll, complete with cotton ball hair and toothpick arms holding up a wee little song book.  Yes, we put a star on top of our tree. 

I know it’s just made up that December 25^th is Jesus’ birthday.  It was a pagan holiday long before Christians took it over, but hey, that’s true of a lot of stuff.  It’s silly for me to be in a funk about it.  I’m glad Jesus was born, and I’m going to have a better attitude about the “reason for the season.”  But let’s be honest, Christmas is a secular holiday too.  I’m pretty damn sure that atheists, agnostics and people who just don’t have any religious feelings in particular put up trees and hang up their stockings, sing carols and exchange gifts with friends and family.  

Don’t be too hard on me, J.  I love you too.