Abandon Place

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.