Dogs, Devils, and the Razor's Edge
Normalcy, it seems, isn't all it is cracked up to be. Really, if you
delve into the subject a bit, we are all slaves to something or other. We just
find ourselves, one day, wondering how in the Hell we arrived at such an absurd
junction, such a place of chaos… I often wonder, "What if each and every
one of us could 'really' tap our potential?" We seem to think that it is
all about power and money, but it isn't folks. It is about living the truth of
who we were meant to be; which is: we were meant to be God-like, not the ego-maniacs
that have evidently hijacked our own reality from right under our proboscis Pinocchio
noses...
Speaking of proboscises, I remembered, recently, one of my first dogs.
Her name was Nutmeg, but we just called her Meg. She was a Weimaraner; you
know, one of those William Wegman dogs that are all shimmering purple, with
floppy ears, and long noses? What a trip… Meg, my dog, was hit by a car in the
alley behind my house. My dad tried to pick her up and carry her into the house, but, in the accident, she had broken her
back and then bit him when he tried to lift her. They were both bleeding when they
came through the kitchen door. I remember it vividly... I made a painting of it
once. The whole thing was cartoon-like and very happy-pastel with tiny blood
red drops, but right in the corner, I painted myself. I was also happy-pastel,
but my face… my face… the size of a thumbnail, was squinched into a mask of
anguish, confusion, and fury.
We all have our masks, our
faces that we put on to deal with the reality at hand. At work today, I got
into this really interesting philosophical discussion with my workmates. One is
a real Jewish mom. The other is a real Christian dad. We each had our own
opinion about how mankind is shaped by the Creator. The Jewish mom was primarily
focused on her kids, which makes perfect sense. The Christian dad was primarily
focused on his personal vision of belief, which fits. And I was focused on my
personal vision of belief as it relates to my personal experience as a father,
I guess… The conversation got a little heated when the Jewish mom and the
Jewish dad didn't agree with the Christian dad that humans were born inherently
bad. The Jewish mom said something like, "When I look at my kids, how
could I think such a thing? They may do stuff that is not necessarily good,
but, just look at them! They are bright, beautiful little beings!" It made
sense, but it wasn't really philosophy; it was living reality.
The Christian dad then started
to vent at how he didn't mean 'her' kids, he meant Humanity in general. That is
when I chimed in with the whole Yetzer deal… "It is not possible, in the
realm of… 'reality,' for a human being to be inherently bad. If a person has
the potential to be bad, that does not make the person intrinsically bad. We
all have the ability to choose, in every micro-second of every moment, to do
good or not to. This is what makes us God-like, Betzelem-Elokim." The Jewish mom agreed. The Christian dad
seemed to feel that he had not been able to get his point across…
As of late, I have become much
more aware that there are forces at work, forces that, even though I have
studied them and learned about how they fit perfectly into a 'rationally' based
spiritual world, are way beyond what I will ever be capable of
understanding. The forces that hit the hardest are the ones that tend to peel off
our masks, to expose the bleeding edge of our personal ego-trips. Ultimately, I
have to remember that it is all a trip and that every moment, regardless of how
trivial or uneventful, how horrible or how tragic, is a gift. I have to
remember that we were designed to be givers in a world that promotes takers. I
have to remember that God is on my side, giving me the challenges that I can
handle and making me go the long way around when I just can't deal…
It's all such a trip…
Shabbat Shalom!
