I find that incomprehensible, surrounded as I am with keepsakes from our meandering journey — a journey visited by sudden hairpin turns and steep dips and climbs along the way. Many of our Christmas/seasonal mementos are still shadowed by their aura of anxiety, fear or sorrow.
For example, a picture of our family sits atop a table. It is sunrise on Mt. Kenya, Africa, and we have made the three-day hike in time to greet the Christmas morn’ of 2001. Having been yanked out of Pakistan immediately after 9/11 and leaving everything behind, we were temporarily posted to Nairobi and this was our desperately needed “alternative Christmas”.
So I sit here surrounded by external reminders of a chaotic life, but I find that in this space I experience take-your-breath-away peace.
I decide to record this slice of seasonal contentment. Personality and years of professional habit snap to attention, ready to dissect it into categories delineated by space and time. But I tell my attendants to take the night off. Somehow I know this sense of peace has arisen from the whole and not from the sum of its individual parts.
Physics tells us we live in an “observer-influenced” world. But what does “observer-influenced” mean? Is it not possible that acts done with love, kindness and compassion are creating much more than just good feelings. Could they be changing molecular structures?
Isn’t this the subject of poets, mystics and lovers? Throughout religious history, theologians have written about how God has chosen to work with humanity — how God, Divinity, Ultimate Reality adds to, enhances and supplements our flawed attempts at doing good. Hence we are “co-creators” with God, in an “observer-influenced” world.
So let’s assume I have co-created this space with Divinity. Using basic principles of order and beauty that reflect attributes of God, I have tried to create a place of rest for my family.
Perhaps the love and, yes, the sorrows inherent in these mementos contribute physically to this peace. Much has been written about the benefits of sorrow and suffering, somehow they add to the whole in ways we will never fully understand.
Maybe each one comes with its own fairy dust and mixed together it creates a matrix flecked with gold, binding life together, and my soul perceives this shimmering apart from my physical senses.
Regardless, it’s an experience characterized by a sense of completeness. This experience fills me with hope for two reasons. First, if we can find one place outside of ourselves where we feel tangible peace, we can know that peace exists. That in spite of our failures, the injustices of life and its disappointments, peace can exist. And second, my efforts matter. This is significant, especially in our postmodern society. To believe there is no purpose in life, that we are just molecules in the cosmic soup, strands of DNA fighting to survive for the sake of surviving, is a metaphysical decision. There is no proof that that statement is true and to believe so is a leap of faith.
Yes, it is also a leap of faith to believe that choices we make to increase the good in the universe matter, and that we can co-create with Ultimate Reality, Divinity, God.
However, most of humanity throughout history would agree that their experiences fit with the latter statement of faith. Are we to deny the reality of our experiences? To deny the historicity of our lives?
Rationally, I have yet to plumb the depths of this experience but I have recorded what I could. Peace settles upon me, permeating me. It is enough.
Source: The Jakarta Post | Sun, 12/28/2008 8:29 AM | Headlines
