December Songs

I have inhabited this old house for many years, and like all old houses, it creaks, groans, and defies repair. The slate roof, now fragile from years of weather and storm, suffers cracks, splits, and breaks. Water is starting to leak into the house, and the slate is breaking down faster than I can repair or replace it. The gutters have pulled away from the house, compounding the problem. The plumbing is going. The pipes rattle, drip, and leak from faucets, showers, and basement joints all hours of the day and night. The furnace has lost its mojo and the AC is on the blink. The railings along the steep steps upstairs to the bedrooms and downstairs to the basement have come off. They cannot be restored. So, from the precipices, I peer down and step slowly, carefully, and with some fear. The house is dim, the lights flicker, some have lost their glow and cannot be replaced. Making my way in this most familiar home is now treacherous. I cannot move to a better accommodation. This is my abode. My life is tethered to it.

This old house is my body. 

I believe in ghosts. Indeed, I am a ghost maker and soon-to-be ghost. So are you.¹

I don’t believe in the conventional idea of ghosts – supernatural beliefs about white-sheeted spirits of the deceased who share a kinship with demons and angels, haunting houses, passing through walls, rattling windows, whose voices and presence can be conjured by mediums who bridge the gap between the living and the dead. These are not real ghosts. Real ghosts arise from our ephemeral presence as creatures of time.

As I go through my day, I leave a trail behind: a bed unmade, a desk cluttered with papers, pens, and a blinking computer, my study door ajar, shoes in the corner, my breakfast cup and spoon in the dish rack, clothes askew on hangers, keys on the table, cough drop wrappers in the basket. This, and more, just from this morning. Each of us leaves behind a trail in our journey through our daily lives.   

We often overlook these paths that scribe our daily routines and commonplace activities. They are not extraordinary, do not stand apart from time, and offer little reason for scrutiny. However, this largely ignored trail is lifted from the mundane when we die. Death ends trails. As we are no longer, our past’s presence is poignantly spotlighted. Objects, imbued with the imprint of having been part of our life, when noticed by those who care about us, become touchstones to our having been here. They can be experienced as precious, as sacred. They can also haunt. This “having-been-but-no-longer” is where ghosts inhabit.

We need not have someone die to see their ghost. Look at their trail, now, while they are still alive. All that is required is to step outside the daily rush, pause from the mundane concerns that fill our lives, and, for even a moment, experience the epiphany of their ghost-making while they are still here, still able to hug, to love, to laugh, to cry; grateful for their ghost-making presence, before their—and our—trail is ended. . . forever. Don’t wait until it is too late.

Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster²

I was recently asked by a dear friend and her wonderful husband-to-be to officiate their wedding. This allowed me to fulfill one of my life’s goals—to become a clergyperson in the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster. The ordination process was not difficult—it cost $59. No theological training (or anything else) was required.

Please note, the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster is a legitimate religion recognized by the state of Missouri. As it should be. The founding prophet of the Church has this to say about its legitimacy:

“The Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster is a real, legitimate religion, as much as any other. The fact that many see this as a satirical religion doesn’t change the fact that by any standard one can come up with, our religion is as legitimate as any other. And that is the point.”

Amen, brother, amen!

I am wearing the religious headcover of our Church. I know the Ethical Society is committed to diversity, inclusion, and acceptance of individuals on the margins of conventional society, so I know that whatever laughter you might display is your way of expressing kindness and respect, not scorn and ridicule. After all, our headgear and theology are no more bizarre than any other religion and deserve the same level of respect.

As a duly ordained clergyperson, with the power vested in me by the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster, I give you “A Pastafarian’s theology of the meaning of life.”

I confess I have not read the Pastafarian’s Holy Book of Loose Canons. But I do not need to have studied its theology, as it is embodied in our Church’s name, our Holy Book title, the religious images of our deity, and my head covering. I also must confess that this is my interpretation of Pastafarian theology that other Church members might find absurd and funny. At least I hope they would.

Meaning of Life?

What is the meaning of life? The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Universe says it is the number 42. Ha! says I, that’s absurd. The Pastafarian answer is in harmony with 42 and can be summarized in two words: playful absurdity.

This is not an obvious or, perhaps, satisfying answer to the question of life’s meaning. Indeed, it appears to be an evasion or dismissal. No so. I begin by trying to convince you of the absurdity of life. 

I was not troubled by the meaning of life when I entered college. The answer was clear. I was a Christian and my life is a moral struggle to keep to the Straight-and-Narrow. If I succeed, I am rewarded with an eternity of peace and bliss. If I fail, I am condemned to everlasting, unimaginable suffering.

As I made my way through college and lost the Christian certainties of a black-and-white world, the question about the meaning of my life became a pressing and distressing obsession. Everything seemed stupid, vacuous, meaningless. We live a pointless life of no consequence, and after we are six feet under, we are soon forgotten. So why bother?

Absurdity

I came to see, literally, the absurdity that composes our lives. The first time I remember the scales falling from my eyes was when I was a summer construction worker, laying reinforcing rods for a concrete floor to be poured on the seventh story of a new building. Standing up to take a break from the ache of back-bending labor, from this perch high above everything, I saw a sign for the Shell gas station across the street.

Except this time, it was not a Shell sign I saw. It was now a large, bright, eye-popping yellow image on a pole thrust into the sky. It had been stripped of its meaning, laid bare as a shocking, bizarre object. I was no longer looking at a sign. I was SEEING it, naked, without the cultural adornment of meaning.  

I could now “see” Andy Warhol’s Campbell soup can as he intended—a compelling, garishly decorated, bizarre object. It is not just Shell signs and soup cans—everything, thus viewed, is absurd.

Here is another object that I invite you to “see”, naked, through Andy Warhol eyes.

This is Marcel Duchamp’s work of art that he labeled “Fountain” in 1917. He called this piece of art a ready-made, as it was already made and possessed an already established cultural meaning; it is a urinal. However, by removing it from its usual cultural context and offering it as an object of art with the title “Fountain” he exposed its absurdity.

This ready-made is one of the most important art objects in the history of modern art. Andy Warhol and much else in modern art are derivatives of Duchamp’s Fountain. They challenge us to see the absurdity of all the ready-mades that compose our lives.

And here is another ready-made object whose meaning has been upended and rendered absurd.

“Seeing” undermines the assumed, rock-solid meanings of our everyday, mundane world. Our experience of the mundane results from being socialized into a ready-made world of familiar meanings, established routines, communal habits, and cultural rituals that render the world obvious, given, and straightforward.

“Seeing” can be thrilling and exhilarating, but also frightening and deeply disturbing. Mind-altering drug experiences are excursions into the wonderland of “seeing.” They can lead to epiphanies of the sacred, and can also lead to madness. Our sanity depends on our reflexive engagement in this mundane, ready-made world that renders it commonplace.

Nonsense

We also speak nonsense. Say a word over and over, fast. “Milk, Milk, etc.” Doing so strips it of its meaning, exposing its sonic absurdity. Learning a foreign language has the same effect only in reverse. It is an act of faith that the nonsense sounds we try so hard to master will, in the right linguistic context, exert their magic pull and elicit a response. 

Words are ready-mades; they are cultural agreements about the meanings of specific sounds. We speak through these ready-made forms, inhabit their common meanings, and use them to express our ideas and intentions.

Words are absurd. I am crafting noisy puffs of air as I speak to you. You hear meanings. You cannot help but hear meanings. We possess innate brain structures that enable us, at birth, to quickly acquire language; to transform the absurd sounds that compose any and all languages into meaning. Paradoxically, our shared meanings are derived from absurd sounds.

I hope I have convinced you that the world is absurd. I would like to now talk about the second component of Pastafarian theology—playfulness.

Playfulness

Humor, jokes, puns, satire, and parody derive their force by upending our assumptive expectations. We are surprised, delighted and, perhaps, shocked because our anticipations about how things are, or should be, are overturned—in a playful way. This playful upending occurs because we are “just kidding,” “don’t really mean it,” which allows for transgressing without consequence.

Deep truths can be stated or hinted at while “just kidding.” Indeed, these playful romps are subversive, allowing us to safely explore alternative possibilities and truths. Comedians are frequently the ones who offer the most penetrating observations of contemporary morals and mores, politics and religion. They are our modern-day tricksters and fools who, throughout the ages, have poked fun at kings and princes, mocked the sacred and the cherished, sneered at tradition and convention.

Pastafarian Deep Truths

The Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster is part of this tradition of “just kidding” playfulness that speaks deep truths. The deep truth for Pastafarians is that traditional religions, with their white-knuckled theology and ready-made answers, fail to embrace or even acknowledge the fundamental absurdity of life. It would be a sacrilege to do so, which is the problem with their theologies.

The sacred for Pastafarians is not a supernatural deity or a reality beyond this world. The sacred is this miraculous world and the impossibly improbable fact that we find ourselves alive, in it, a part of it, here, now, for our poignantly brief moment in time.

Absurdity is a way we catch a glimpse of our existential situation as a mutant primate species of recent origins on a planetary speck in the vast, incomprehensible immensity of the cosmos. Absurdity is how an incomprehensible cosmos reveals itself to us profoundly ignorant, trifling beings.

The theologies of ready-made certainties are comforting, as they suppress the fright and terror that can accompany awareness of our cosmic plight. And they are white-knuckled because any rent in the curtain of ready-made meanings would reveal the gaping hole of absurdity beneath. No wonder they have so many ardent believers.

Pastafarian spiritual practice does not consist of solemn prayer, sober meditation, self-flagellation, or mindless chanting. Rather, our spiritual practice is to live playfully within the absurdity of life.

How can we possibly do this?

Golf

Golf. Golf offers an example of how to live in such a way.

Golf is the most gravely serious of sports. Tournaments occur in very exclusive, private clubs typically off-limits to the general public, attire is country club conservative, caddies carry the golfer’s clubs and serve up the desired club for each shot, the crowds are silent during play, commentators offer their remarks in whispered voice, and players adhere to strict codes of honor and etiquette.

Each golf course is unique and specially designed with obstacles of various types to challenge the golfer; narrow fairways, strategically placed bunkers, sand traps, trees and water hazards, tall grasses to make it rough on a player who strays there, and tilted, undulating putting greens with difficult cup placements that prevent easy straight-line putts to the hole.

Golf is a sport ripe for parody. And miniature golf delivers, upending the serious solemnity of golf. It is played on very short holes, requiring only a putter, using a colored ball, and real-world course challenges are replaced by manufactured funhouse obstacles. You can stroke away on a glow-in-the-dark course with underwater themes of mermaids, sharks, and giant clams; or putt your way through a Victorian house with holes based on a labyrinth board; or you can play in the basement of a funeral home with death-themed holes, including a coffin, of course, and guillotine hazards.

A good friend of mine, who is a golf enthusiast, told me about a TV show he watches: “Holey Moley.” It is a very bizarre show involving “golf.” Participants compete on a course with unusual “super-sized” obstacles similar to those found in miniature golf. What makes “Holey Moley” unique is that after putting, the players must run a gauntlet of crazy obstacles, such as mounting a giant rotating plastic hot dog. Commentators make jokes about the competitors, about each other, and laugh at the absurdity of the entire enterprise. It is riotous fun.

Absurdity and Meaning

“Holey Moley” is a parody of miniature golf that is also a parody, multiplying the absurdity quotient and highlighting the absurdity of golf itself: “All this serious effort just to hit a ball into a hole! Why bother playing golf—such a pointless enterprise?!”

Life is golf writ large: “All this serious effort to what end? Why bother playing life—such a pointless enterprise?!”

Are golf, and life, absurd? Of course. Does that make them meaningless? Of course not.

In my experience, those who are most likely to say “All this serious pursuit just to hit a ball into a hole! Why bother playing golf?!” are those who do not play golf. That’s because once you play the game, open yourself to the divots, roughs, and hazards, you also experience the joys of the game: the satisfying smack of the club-to-ball, the shots out-of-the-rough-onto-the-green, the putts-into-the-hole.

The absurdity of our lives is our cosmic heritage, but meaning in our lives is found within the more humble circumference of our joys and sorrows, loves and losses, aspirations and regrets, commitments and values. 

The absurd becomes meaningful when we are fully engaged in playing the game.

The answer to pointless absurdity: “Tee it up.”

I leave you with a Pastafarian blessing: “Carbo Diem!” ” Seize the day!”

“I am 6 AND A HALF years old!” I wanted to make clear that I am not 6. I am older than six—I’m on my way to 7! This, I know I mentioned, along with similar declarations about my age into adulthood. Indeed, when I was 20, I looked 14, so I probably maintained the “and one-half” routine longer than most.

Why? Because I wanted to be grown up; to be a grown-up.  When we are children, we, literally, look up to adults. We inhabit a land of giants who rule over our lives and can impose their wishes on us, physically if they choose. Our natural line of sight at the age of six and a half is the midsections of these giants. Growing UP is our body’s trajectory when we are young and the aspiration of every child: to be a “Big boy,” a “Big girl.”

“My hair is grey, and I can say anything I like.” This my mother said when her hair turned grey, and this she did. This was not only a declaration of her newfound freedom but also a statement about her life stage: “I’m identifiably old, no longer beholden to keeping up appearances, and am free to say what I really think without worrying about the consequences.”

Body Clocks

Our body is a biological timepiece. Born as a seedling, we sprout into saplings, then blossom into fruition. The seasons take their toll; our seeds dry up, our limbs, trunk, and heartwood wither, and we creak and groan. Time inscribes itself in our bones. Like a tree, our “bone rings” provide an accurate estimate of our chronological age. Time is not just inscribed in our bones but throughout our entire body; the rush and ebb of hormones, dimmed eyes and ears, unsightly changes in skin and hair, faltering brain and gait, intestinal dysregulation—these and everything else are all time-stamped. Our identity is tied to our growth rings: “I’m 6 AND A HALF!” “My hair is grey!”

Time is uniquely embodied in each of us and none escapes its grip. Actuarial tables provide an aggregate estimate of life expectancy, but we each carry our genetic fate embedded in our own particular historical, cultural, and environmental niches. Time’s grasp exerts a constant tug that resides at the rim of our consciousness; the day-to-day fluctuations too small to notice, but they nevertheless exert a tidal pull on our desires and aspirations (i.e., “I want to grow UP!”), anxieties and dread (i.e., “Oh my god, grey hair!”).

At six and a half, growth is a biological imperative that propels us toward adulthood, promising future membership in the land of giants: to be grown up! On the distant horizon, barely visible, if at all, is our body’s demise. If we are lucky, most of us are rarely confronted with the stark reality of our time-stamped bodies for many years after reaching biological adulthood. Along the way, hints abound, from round-numbered birthdays to the manageable aches and pains that visit us, to the crow’s feet appearing under our eyes. No need to think about death yet; its prospect awaits on a barely glimpsed horizon.

I’m Coming for You

This has not been my relationship with death. For reasons I am not fully aware of, the prospect of my own death has haunted me most of my life. At any moment, I could be gone?! Forever?! Really?! Incredulity. Rage. Fright. Despair. Terror. Gratitude. Forgiveness. Love, oh love. My gut-level grasping of the reality that awaits prompts these reactions and many more.

My relationship with death has changed as I have aged. The actuarial projections of my expected life have framed my relationship with death. When my youthful body and mind were propelled by energy, excitement, ambition, and the promises of the future before me, death loomed as the end of my future. I raged: “I could be deprived of my chance to live my life!”

My actuarial future shortened as I entered middle age, yet my end was not imminent. Death, perched on my shoulder, insisted: “Don’t waste your chance; live meaningfully.” My greatest fear was that I would squander my miraculous opportunity at life.

Now, white-haired (that which is left), my body parts are past due, reflexes, eyesight, strength, and judgment are faltering, and even ordinary activities, like managing stairs or walking on uneven ground, are potentially life-threatening. Modern medicine has extended the due date of some bones and parts, but as I hobble along, visiting an increasing number of doctors for an increasing number of maladies, my future is much different. Even the actuarial tables offer little hope. Death weighs heavy on my shoulders and shouts: “I’m coming for you—soon”.

Roulette Wheel

My father was afflicted with Parkinson’s in his late 70s. My mother was stricken by Crohn’s disease when she was 90, which was so rare at her age that her doctor wanted to write a medical case study. Parkinson’s!? Crohn’s!? Both out-of-the-blue surprises. Both contributing factors to their deaths. I am at the age where friends are dying at an alarming rate from an alarming number of unexpected causes: stomach cancer, dementia, heart failure, immunological collapse, and more.

Death’s roulette wheel spins within each of us, the ball skittering across an unimaginable range of possible paths to our demise. As my aging, failing body wobbles, the wheel slows, the ball clatters more loudly. What deadly surprises await? Parkinson’s? Crohn’s? What is the fated slot where my ball will come to rest? My fate is also tied to Sharon’s, my life’s love. What is our tethered future? Who will go first? How? What will be our coupled journey through the valley of the shadow of death? How shall we live our lives together in the dimming light of our December days?

Each day is a choice. In our younger years, when the actuarial future stretches into a distant horizon, it is easy to dismiss thoughts and concerns about death as an irrational preoccupation about something of little immediate consequence. In old age, however, considerable effort is required to dismiss, deny, or disregard the tightening noose.

This foreshortened future confers its own gift: The immediate, visceral experience of the precious NOW. I am on my porch. I hear the shouts and laughter of the neighbor’s kids, feel the breeze on my face as I watch the birds squabble at our feeder, hear Sharon singing in the kitchen. My breath catches. Will the ball drop today?

My cosmic good fortune was to be born into this world, loved, cared for, and given life wisdom by my mother, an angelic spirit in human form. She died 10 years ago today, April 19, 2014. This post is a memorial to her life and her presence that lives on in me and the many others whose lives she graced with her loving touch. This is the eulogy I gave at her memorial:

My mother was a “Jolly Swinger”. I bet you didn’t know that. In the 60s, she, along with a small group of other housewives seeking afternoon pleasures, formed a group. The “Jolly Swingers” was what they called themselves—- it was the name of their bowling team. I’m not quite sure if she was naïve to all the associations with the name or if it was a sly wink. Either could be true. She never said. And I couldn’t tell.

My mother possessed a deceiving innocence. She was small in stature, had snow-white hair with curls surrounding her head that, in the proper light, shone like a halo. Her voice had a lilting inflection of song, and her mouth, in resting state (which was rare), had a slight crease of a smile from years of laughter. She was gregarious, enjoyed the company of others, and left a trail of love and affection in her wake. Her spirit was uncontaminated by many of the usual human failings: She was without guile and ego; she harbored no malice and was incapable of intrigue. 

Most would not know, and few would suspect, that she had seen much hardship in her life. She was born and raised in Appalachia. Her father died in 1933, at the height of the Great Depression, when she was 12, leaving her to be raised by her mother who had an 8^th grade education and no means of support. She and her mother moved often, from Kentucky to West Virginia, then to Florida and on to Washington DC, where she met my father during the war. After the war, she moved to upstate New York to join my father’s family. Later in life she moved back to Florida, then to North Carolina, and moved two more times after she was here in this state.

She learned much from her moves, including sensitivity to those who do not fit in, those on the fringe, and resilience to cope with life’s vicissitudes with openness and acceptance. Joys and heartrending sorrows followed her. She was tough, very tough in ways that were largely invisible. In the face of much hardship, when she could have easily succumbed to despair, she instead chose hope; instead of bitterness, she chose forgiveness; instead of rancor, she chose love. What steeled her, anchored her, saved her, was her unwavering faith. She rarely talked of her faith—hers was the quiet variety that was articulated in her comportment, actions, and deeds.

When my wife, Sharon, joined our family she would compliment my mother on things she admired: “What a beautiful lamp”, said Sharon.  “Oh, do you want it?”, replied my mother. Sharon stopped making such remarks as it became clear that my mother was prepared to give away her entire household, if asked. Things, possessions, held little sway for her—–people and their welfare were her currency.

Kindness was not an intentional act for my mother; it was who she was. Her days were punctuated with acts of kindness, large and small, and I give you several examples.  One of the residents at Jordan Oaks (which was the independent living facility where she resided for some time), was also named Pauline; she was Jewish and, for many reasons, felt like an outsider there. She played cards with my mother and confided in her. When Pauline was diagnosed with cancer, my mother gave her one of your church’s prayer shawls to take with her to chemotherapy. Pauline wept on receiving it. She did take it with her for her chemotherapy and after, when the treatment failed, was comforted with it as her death approached.

Then there was the middle-aged Black man who shared rehab for knee replacement surgery with my mother, who, after 4 or 5 sessions, began referring to her as “mom”. And the Hispanic cleaning staff at Jordan Oaks, who called her “pollito”, an affectionate diminutive in Spanish that sounds like “Polly” and means “little chicken.” She was not influenced by a person’s station or status in life; the outsiders, the marginalized, the disenfranchised these, especially, drew her attention and affection.

Here is what she taught me about humility: When she left Jordan Oaks, she received notes of gratitude from the cleaning staff, and from others, letters of appreciation for her wisdom and kindness. When I asked her about it, she was truly perplexed: “I don’t understand, I was just being me”, she said, and changed the subject. This was not a coy avoidance. Her humility did not involve restraint in publicly acknowledging attributes she secretly took pride in. Rather, what she did was so integral to who she was that it was invisible to her. She simply didn’t understand what the fuss was about.

She was kind, generous, and humble, but also was an astute judge of others. She had a keen and unerring eye for falsity, pomposity and cant, but kept her opinions private—unless she was violated. She may have appeared a naïve, easy mark to some, but she was not afraid, when pushed, to offer pointed, confronting observations that could freeze someone in mid-air. Coming from her, such remarks were especially powerful, for they were both so very rare and, when given, so very incisive.

This oft-hidden aspect of her was tellingly revealed in a court case where she was the central witness. When she was in her early 80s, she was in a car accident, and the driver of the other car sued my mother for hundreds of thousands of dollars in damages. The case dragged on for over 6 years before it came to trial. My mother was 88 at the time. The strategy of the opposing attorney was clear: To demonstrate that my mother was a confused, disoriented and uncertain old woman who should not have been driving, and was obviously at fault.  

When the questioning began, the attorney was quite confident and full of herself. My mother turned out to be a cool, savvy and unflappable witness—she calmly conceded nothing. As the interrogation progressed the attorney became more confused, disorganized and uncertain— it became obvious that the attorney was simply harassing this sweet, innocent elderly lady. The jury met for less than a half-hour and dismissed the case.

The last days of her life held true to her entire life, and I offer this final example that occurred moments after her last breath: My mother spent the last 2 weeks of her life at the Carolina House, a remarkable assisted living facility in Cary. These last days were marked by a precipitous decline in her functioning; helplessness, pain, confusion, weakness, and discomfort prompted fervent prayers by her that God take her from this world. My sister, Linda, her husband, Paul, and I were with her when she died. Two aids walked in seconds after, saw us, understood what had just happened; they began to cry, and hugged us. They talked of her gentle, endearing spirit and how they loved Miss Polly. She had been there only 2 weeks, in the most demeaning and debilitating of physical conditions, yet she had touched these 2 African American aids who had long tenures at the Carolina House and had seen much dying— bringing them to tears and hugs at her passing.

She died the day before Easter.

There is, of course, always the danger of overstating or exaggerating in a eulogy, especially if the eulogy is for your mother. But I am confident that those here who knew my mother will know that the problem, in her case, is quite the opposite. Her example has taught me that words are mere shadows when trying to capture the fullness of such a life, lived.

And I am grateful beyond words to have had my life given and formed by this angelic spirit. There are deep responsibilities that accompany being the recipient of her grace. And I know that I fall woefully short. But I also know that she forgives me, as she always has. My hope is that whatever good flows from my life serves as a proper tribute to the debt I owe her.  

Amen.

I awake, my body is sore. Moving, the joints are stiff, the back rebels, activity requires some effort. This is happening much more regularly, is becoming routine. So, too, the general tiredness, and the fire, the energy that naturally propels me up-and-out is flagging. My eyes, despite cataract surgery, are starting to cloud, my ears need aids, my sleep requires a mask and hose, my surgically repaired and reconstructed knees announce themselves when I walk.

I have been most fortunate. I am in my mid-70’s, still mobile and cognitively alert (albeit diminished). Modern medicine has left some scars, but for my age—lucky me! My physical diminishment and aches, minor though they be, are mine, experienced viscerally, personally, intimately. They inhabit me, claim me—are me! And I feel the Shadow closing in.

But they are more than that. They are my unique experience of “the dying of the light”; something experienced by all living beings, in their many forms, in their varied and unique ways. I am but one infinitesimal manifestation of life on this remarkable planet. My personal experience of youthful surge, followed by dissipation, then expiration offers me a peek through my narrow portal into the experience of the Surge, Dissipation, Expiration of all living things. Oh my! What a singular opportunity given to me in the wild randomness of my birth!⁹ I travel in a crowd with fellow beings, blinking into life for our brief, dynamic moment then, blink—out!

My dear friend, Bill, a pilot in the Korean War and an Air Force flight instructor, talked about death as “the last great adventure.”¹⁰ He wanted to be a witness, to be attuned to this last adventure. As life ebbed from him, so quietly in the dark night, he gave a faint sign that he was there, witnessing. Aware, he flew into the darkness.

Can I, as I dissipate toward expiration, lift my eyes from my compelling personal drama to the horizon of astonishment at being in this crowd? Can I be a witness to my expiration that shares common ground with Life? Can I be witness to this last, sacred moment?

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