You say you're done. With your job, the piles of bills and debts, your fair-weather friends, increasingly heavy burdens, the weather, and me. You've reached your limit! You aren’t as subtle or cool as you pretend, so everyone can hear your impotent yelp. You don’t need anything! So go. Just go. Go hunt your own meaning and purpose. There must be a sale on self-help books somewhere.
I want you to see my eyes when I remind you that you too, are both predator and victim. You and the latest crop of showponies you call friends mistake my generosity for other things, conjured or whispered and I don’t have time for repeats or further rejection of reality. Besides, you’re off by miles, galaxies, and lifetimes. I’ve seen it all before, but offer mercy anyway. What is the word for, “No we can’t hang out, but I sincerely wish you peace and love for the rest of your days”? Perhaps something like this.
Build your temples and altars, then light them all on fire. There is sacred to be found in the profane, and the ordinary. You have not been forsaken, your people are not abandoning you with intention. I did not leave when you broke our agreement, I’m just over here ducking for cover and playing witness, but there is nothing left to resist, or argue over.
This does not mean you are not adored or valued, but humans are known to disappoint, or disappear. I may be a disappointment to you but I’m still here. For reasons we cannot parse, our current condition may excite or repel others into a retelling or dissolution of their own truth.
Not to diminish your experience, nor adorn your dark night of the soul with glittering accessories or lipgloss. You can't pretty up an existential crisis.
This is going to hurt.
If what you expect of me is another glorious phrase borrowed from the wise ones who came before us, playing the eternal optimist or jester for your court, then we've never met. Excuse me while I locate a plunger for the overflow. I can be just like you- full of $hit.
It is hellish, what you must endure. I speak with authority only because I've been forced to become intimate with suffering and grief. I know a few things about suffering, and silver linings too. Parkinson’s has been both degenerative and regenerative. (More on this later.)
I’ve had trouble believing anyone reassuring victims of various abuses and the persecuted that justice will prevail. It feels like the bad guys are winning. Not only winning, but kicking us all in the proverbial nuts on the way to the highest office where they can insert lopsided policy that serves only them and theirs. How can only a few own the air above as well as the land and sea below, when paradise was a gift to all?
I don't see any lines telling us where to stand, do you?
The reason blood continues pumping through my veins and not spilling into an early grave is LOVE. Love felt, observed, given... lived. I swallow all the pills they sell, but the drugs don't work. My medicine has nothing to do with pharmaceuticals, or MDs or PhDs or letting everyone know how to be enlightened.
I refuse to bumpersticker this to make you feel better, because there is no way out. Ask Johnathan Briley, or Bal Kishan, or Jill Wieber Lens about choices from the comfort of your home, then let’s talk. We must remain acutely aware that not everyone is having the same experience. After criticizing the use of an infamous rapper as a reason to support educational opportunities from my sweaty keyboard, a wise woman once reminded me of this fact, and I’ve never forgotten it.
Hold this child, this part of you that died. It's not your fault. We show up under circumstances beyond our control because we have no choice.
My Father used to say, "I'd sit upon a carpet tack and ride around the world and back, for you,” and I knew he would have done this and more, because he loved me completely, unconditionally. He did this without expecting anything in return, apart from an occasional hug and an awareness that son of God, or not, Jesus was right. Indeed, worship or word without works is dead.
Though there is no substitute for unconditional love, we can learn to give it even if we've never received it. There is an infinite supply of love in our existence, so we can only imagine what is beyond our knowing.
And though we hurt one another, notice how I'm still here. Not as a masochist or another impossibly slow learner, but because I've seen your sweet side. It’s too late for pretending to be hard and impenetrable, because in spite of your efforts to cover it up, I can see you.
I don't have to believe in us together to believe in you.
You may ask not why am I here but what might I do to alleviate some small portion of this universal suffering? THIS is how you can gather the strength to marine crawl out of your hidden-hole cave of misery. Time has no obligation to be kind, but in my shortened stint on Earth, I can.
Do you have any idea how many decent human beings it took to revive me this week? Yesterday I woke with bitterness on my tongue, muttering about death and taxes, yet by the graces of many, I am revived. Support is not always what we may think it is or should be, and arrives just in time from unexpected sources!
So let's roll...come on it's getting late! Maybe all you can do is wiggle your toe but there is no getting around or under or avoiding this one. If I can do this, so can you.
I keep looking around for an adult. Surely, there must be someone here with answers or ideas on how to escape the worst parts of being human? Shall I consult another spiritual advisor? Where do we go and what do we do,now that Dad is gone and Mom is so far away?
If you still feel lost or despondent, here is how to begin:
1. Listen to that small voice that says get up.
2. Take your coat off and give it to someone who needs it.
3. Ask where you might be most useful.
4. Ask (directly and clearly and specifically) for help and guidance.
5. Stay in your body and in each moment, even if it hurts.
6. Find a touchstone and stop drinking so much poison.
7. Breathe deeply, then repeat after me, "Human being."
8. Go. Love. Now.