Category: faith

Great Mystery we honour

My grandmother had always referred to the universe as the Great Mystery.

Richard Wagamese, Indian Horse, page 65.

“We need mystery. Creator in her wisdom knew this. Mystery fills us with awe and wonder. They are the foundations of humility, and humility, grandson, is the foundation of all learning. So we do not seek to unravel this. We honour it by letting it be that way forever.”

Ibid.

The transformation that comes from practice and doing the same tasks over and over for many days. The chores build strength and speed and competency. The isolation fosters individuation and delight at the ability to accomplish and notice the changes that come with being able to simply do and with time master at what was once impossible.

All the things

How once everything—the good and the bad—seemed like a reflection of the place you were born and how these days, instead, everything—the good and the bad—seems written in the depth of our flesh.

Trick, by Domenico Starnone, page 109.

The decade inside of —

The point of the departed arrow is not merely to pierce the bullseye and carry the trophy: the point of the arrow is to sing the wind and remake the world in the brevity of flight. There are things we must do, sayings we must say, thoughts we must think, that look nothing like the images of success that have so thoroughly possessed our visions of justice. May this new decade be remembered as the decade of the strange path, of the third way, of the broken binary, of the traversal disruption, the kairotic moment, the posthuman movement for emancipation, the gift of disorientation that opened up new places of power, and of slow limbs.

Bayo Akomolafe

When Vinnie Died on Wednesday

It was just before dinnertime and we were driving home from an afternoon at the pool: feeling festive, relaxed, joyous. And, in hindsight, feeling alive. And, three houses from home, I drove across the arroyo and saw the big, brown dog lying on the dirt of the road. I instantly recognized what I was eyeing and said “oh no” aloud. Even though I recognized it/him (that is death and Vinnie), my mind tried to concoct some alternate experience that I was not seeing a dead dog lying 40 feet in front of the windshield. 

– What is he doing? 

– Lying down. 

That is all the response and words that I could muster to the three year old mind in the car seat over my shoulder inquiring about the oddity before us. I paused and tried to figure out what was most appropriate of the multiple things to do, to be done, of how to attend to what was happening: go to the neighbors’; move the carcass; go tell Brin before she saw him; hide it from a toddler’s line of sight; go check his pulse and see if he is sleeping; that is not a natural nor comfortable position to sleep in. So, I proceeded slowly and moved the car delicately around the dog, passing on the driver’s side so I could look out the window as we drove past and saw the flies flying above the small pool of blood underneath his mouth drying in the sand. 

– Did you hit him? 

– No, I drove around.

And I sped to the front door. I left the car running and knocked the knocker once. No response and looked like nobody was home. So I dashed back to the car, and got back to Vinnie’s body still lying in the road. I drove past so the car faced away, and the toddler could not witness what I was doing, and jumped out and walked over to Vinnie. 

He was heavy. 90 pounds of hulking dog deadweighting. This is the fittingness of that single word: deadweight. Vinnie was less than one year old. We first met him December of last year, a puppy so small that he fit into two hands. A cute, cuddly pit bull mix with an brown and white coat. We have watched him grow for the last 10 months, and have only gotten to pet and know him in greater proximity in the last month as we tossed bits of jerky out the window on the way home. A few weeks ago, we had some pieces of cheese in the car, leftovers from another hot summer afternoon at the pool, and tossed those to Vinnie and his brothers, Rusty and Ozzie. That was the day that Vinnie walked all the way to the front door, lay on the mat and wait for 15 minutes to see if there might be more cheese that would come from within. Vinnie drooled such a long slobber that the toddler asked “what is that?” as she watched it fall from his lips to the ground. 

That was the day that everything with Vinnie changed. He was still cautious with us, and would sit 20 feet from the car when we came and parked. But, he wanted to know if we might have a bit of jerky, tortilla chips or that godsend of more cheddar to toss his way from the window or have him come over and eat from our hand. It was only the last 4 weeks, but in 10 months, 4 weeks is a sizable chunk of life. It is 10% of Vinnie’s life this time around. And more importantly, it was the proximiny and the time spent and the trust built and burgeoning internatction that all three of us had. More than we’d ever had with Ozzie, and it was supposed to be the bond that would grow with Vinnie as he became the primary dog next door once Rusty, the 15 year old, bear-fighting-and-surviving-to-have-my-papa-tell-you-about-it, dies. We had been anticipating Rusty’s death to come sometime soon (his papa said he didn’t think that he’d make it through the winter, but he’s also said that for the last two winters). It wasn’t supposed to be Vinnie. 

Vinnie with the long tail with the fat top that stretched out. Vinnie with the beautiful color and distinctive brand just above his hips. Vinnie with ginormous paws and the massive skull. Vinnie with the extra skin on his jowls that he’d just begun to trust us to hold and rub. 

Akal, old baby Vinnie. Akal. Akal. 

End is not in sight

We are undertaking a vast experiment in the days and years and decades that we are alive.

As creatures of habit, we are forever attempting new ways to structure guarantees into life. This is a tricky choice and an attempt to bring greater assuredness into the daily experiences and relationships that defies the essence of being alive in an unknown and unpredictable world. Despite all the messages and signals that we have been told, we do not know what to do in order to know what lies ahead. This we cannot know. Entire lifestyles have been created to offer predictability and a greater perception of knowing what will happen. But we cannot know what will happen; we may know what can happen but are not the entire determinant of whether something will happen as we imagine it to be.

In the midst of all this not knowing, there is concern, anxiety, confusion, and a strong pull to be in control. Control is a fiction where we believe that only one factor, or a few factors, determine an outcome. Control has a confident, brash ego that tells itself and others that it is all that matters; it is unclear whether Control actually knows otherwise, or genuinely believes in its perceived superiority than any (and all) other factor.

Immersed in the lie of Control, I settle into Faith. Faith that there are many factors and divergent forces swimming amongst one another. Similar to the choppy, erratic movement of Brownian’s Motion that I learned if in Form 4 Physics. Fast moving but not in a single direction, so much force. Much uncontrolled force. Uncontrollable.

Faith that there are much greater forces than humans alone and all of humankind on this Earth. Faith in the dogged resilience that fosters life, spawns evolution, encourages experimenting, and embraces change when it happens. Faith that there is much more happening than I can see with mine eyes, hear with my ears, taste, and sense in all ways. Faith in tiny, miniscule, microorganisms of force and Faith in profound, vast ecosystems that harmonize air, earth, water, and fire.