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The Great Mystery

“Good morning, Great Spirit “.

I have not finished my first coffee yet. On my lap, a faithful old dog.
Only hopped up a minute ago. Already fast asleep. Snoring.
It’s a quiet morning. Pale blue, wintery sky. Not a breath of wind.
Temperature hovering just above freezing. Frost.
The early sun’s rays, dancing low across the waking fields, lighting up a million patient, waiting drops.
Beacons. Each, a tiny reminder, of my simple thoughts, that ripple ever curiously through the Universe.

“Who are you?”

I’ve asked the question a million times. Once, at least, for every patient, brief, hanging drop of dew, I see out my window.

“But… Who are you?”

I listen to the silence, and drink it in. The silence thrills me. I love it when my mind seems to slowly empty of the sparks and noise, the grind and sweat, the odors and echoes, the noisy clamor of daily toil. With what seems so important, so pressing, so essential, quietly dismissed, I feel supremely  free. To roam the highways and byways of memory lanes. To explore the Universe, challenge Time, and, so gently, touch…

the Great Mystery.

I’ve long thought that we should be totally honest.
“Maybe you’re not there. Maybe nobody is listening to my quiet thoughts. Not a sausage. Maybe the Universe is empty of Consciousness. Never mind Kindness.”

It doesn’t mean I’m wasting my time. For in a way, such intense meditation, (if that’s the correct word), goes a considerable way to achieve a very positive result. Namely, what? I think, somehow, it purifies my honesty. Enhances my sincerity. Helps me rise above the constant brouhaha of noisy, ever yammering humanity.

Meh. Maybe I’m being snotty. Aloof. I’m just another yammer, really. Parading and posing, tending to the pompous, and finding it hard to accept what I know, deep down, is totally true. Namely that I am not at the center of the Universe. The World does not revolve around me. I could be President, or Pope, Speaker of the House, or some other well known yammer. It doesn’t matter. We’re still all just little blips. Little puffs of vain glory. Sighs in the tempest. Tears in the Ocean. Momentary, fleeting beacons, so kindly touched, by a patient, early morning Sun.

It’s in the Silence, I move closer to this Awareness. It’s in the Silence, I sense the wave. Mid Ocean, eighty foot high, all ah-roaring and ah-crashing. Running out, mere days later, as a barely perceptible ripple, on a soft, sandy Angola beach, between the wiggling toes of a delighted, giggling child.
I’ve long thought that we should be totally honest. Maybe you’re not there. Maybe nobody is listening to my quiet thoughts. Not a sausage. Maybe the Universe is empty of Consciousness.

But what… if it’s not?

In the Beautiful, warm Silence, the Question reverberates.
I ponder, as objectively as I can, the Evidence.
It has been written, and quoted by many, that the evidence for Him is written clearly in the Magnificent Works of the Universe. I can see that. I’m in awe of the Universe. I have found more questions than answers. But the workings of the Cosmos, from one tiny living cell, a factory of amazing complexity, up to clusters of galaxies, both fascinate and humble me. Time, which I do not believe is a straight line constant, also takes my breath away. When I think of eons slipping by, and the bitter, Vodka laced, Drama Queen stumbling and strutting her way about on her flimsy cardboard stage, living only for the feeble, momentary spotlight… I feel sad for her divisive blindness.

And ours.

The truth is we will all be forgotten in the blink of a dew drop’s eye. That thundering truth should be written large inside our eye lids. Ah, if only.
It might, perhaps, lead us to bow the head. Speak softly. Think long. For once.
I’ve long thought that we should be totally honest. Maybe you’re not there. Maybe nobody is listening to my quiet thoughts. Not a sausage. Maybe the Universe is empty of Consciousness.

But what… if it’s not?

I come back to that Question. As I have, for decades.

“Who are you?  And what do you want from me?”

Oh, I know. There’s a million wannabe preachers and Holy men out there, bumping their gums, all queuing up, only too eager to burst forth with their well rehearsed, learned off pat, bombastic, laying-down-the-way-it-is. Exactly, down to the last drop of Holy Water, the last verse or Hadith, the last morsel of sinfulness, and the last, tiny, flickering flame of hell.
Meh. I barely even listen much anymore. Too much… noise.

Who can know the mind of God?

So many talk like they do. Like they are spokesmen for God. Sitting at the Right Hand of God. Like God can sit back, relax. Put his divine feet up.
“We’ve got this, God. ”
“God this “.   “God that “.   “In the name of God. ” Bah, humbug. Their God must live comfortably in a matchbox. That they carry around casually in their hip pocket. “You want to see God? ” “Hang on a second. ”  (pulls out the matchbox)   “Neat, eh? ”  (puts the matchbox back).
“Now never bother Him. Just listen to me… ”
Ridiculous.

A Red Cardinal just came to visit. He sits quietly on the railing outside, and observes me. Occasionally, putting his head to one side. I wonder about his tiny thoughts. Mine, too. And the old dog, snoring on my lap.
And I wonder if a Great Spirit, very patiently, very wisely, gazes down on me.
Listening, sympathetically, to every tiny whirring, in what passes for my mind.
I ask myself, wonderingly. For perhaps the millionth time.
Is he pleased, touched, or amused, or other…
when I, the clumsy-bumbling one,
hesitantly, nervously,
creep into His Presence…

to visit?