We people
sometimes have difficulty dealing with inconsistency. We like to hold on to the
way things were or places that we are. But life - living - is not consistent.
Excluding any cliché about the certainty of taxes, I see three constants you
can count on with assurance: change, the past is past and death. We can be at
peace with our lives if we recognize these three. (God is consistent, but I am
only talking of our current, physical world.)
Everything
changes. You and I change. Just go get an old photograph of yourself and then
look in the mirror.
Look at
this photo. The house which steps the boy sits upon was torn down two
decades ago for a parking lot. The dog died almost 50 years ago. The boy, who
is I, is many years older and believe me, I've changed. I wouldn't want to be a
seven-year-old forever. Would you?
And
everything is different now than then. Telephones were clunky, black and on
party lines, and you had to ask an operator to connect you to another party. No
little portable phones in the pocket with built in cameras and text messaging.
And speaking of cameras, they weren't digital. They held film and you had to
take it to the drugstore for developing and usually wait a week before you
actually got to see your pictures. When that photo of me and Peppy (the dog) was
taken, there were no TVs in people's homes, let alone high-definition, plasma
flat screen monstrosities. There were no DVDs or CDs either. When that photo
was taken, you had 78-rpm hard-vinyl records to play on your record player if
you wanted music.
Not just
technology has changed, but the landscape has as well. That area where that
photo was taken was mostly fields and pasture, but now it is a continuous line
of malls. Even the weather has changed. The climate has been changing, warming
and cooling, since this planet came into existence. Everything changes that you
can be sure about.
There is
something that doesn't change. The past is past. The photo of the boy and dog
is in the past. That moment on those steps happened and is over. I can't go
back and straighten the boy's cap for the portrait. I can't go back and save
the house from rubble or its foundation from beneath macadam. I can't continue
to mourn my pet for that will not make Peppy rest in my arms again. Why should
I dwell in the past and let it dictate my feelings or what I do now? There are
people who mull over and over their past, continue to cry for things long gone
or wring their hands in guilt about deeds they did. If you did wrong then move
on and do right in the now of your life. If someone did wrong to you in the
past, forgive him or her and forget the hurt and stop being a prisoner to their
misdeed. What good does it do you?
Our nostalgic hearts
Are only placated by
Abandoning done.
Do you
understand my haiku? Humans are nostalgic about their memories, which are fine
if we sometimes reminisce about people dear to us that have gone from our lives
as a moment of fondness, but nostalgia for the past can be a millstone about
our neck if we pine or fret about it. The past is past. Done is done. To live
life fully now, you need to abandon what is done, because you cannot make it
different.
I suppose
it is trite to say there is only now. But that is true. This is not an
endorsement of Eckhart Tolle, but now is it and that is where you should be
living. (Jesus taught living in the now long ago: "Therefore do not
worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough
trouble of its own.” Matthew
6:34) You can't undo the
past, so why live there and you can't live in the future because it doesn't
exist yet and when it does exist it will be the now. You need to make
reasonable plans for your future, certainly, but you can't put off your now for
what you plan to do or be in the future. What you want to be, be now. The only
certainty in the future is our third constant. You will die.
Everything living
that is of this world dies. Every tree in the forest will die. Every blade of
grass in your yard will die. Every butterfly that flutters by will die. Death
is just a natural part of life. Don't concern yourself with death; concern
yourself with living to the utmost knowing that someday you will die. Enjoy and
embrace each moment as if it were your last, because it might be.
Knowing that every one around you will also die
should make you show kindness and love to them, to do your best to not waste a
moment of their precious time dealing with misery inflicted by you.
In my case,
I love life here on this earth. I thrill at the diversity and beauty around me.
Still, I despair at the darker side of this place. I try not to add to that
aspect. And I pray for those I know that their lives would be untouched by
heartbreak and sorrow.
For me
change is part of the journey. The past was lessons that I hope have made me
better. And death is simply a doorway from the downside of this world to an
eternity where tears don't exist and certainty does.
