Untimely Thoughts Of An Immortalist

I awakened at - 8:47? I think, 8:47. Too late to Uber the morning rush.

It's now 10:50. I have spent most of the past two hours in my office with the blinds pulled and the lights off so that it's dark. Not nighttime dark. In-between, neither-here-nor-there dark.

No TV, no radio. Silent.

I think the ill-defined darkness and the silence have both contributed to me spending most of the past two hours browsing online - for nothing in particular. After spending perhaps half an hour or more trying to recall an article that I read once about luxury cars that can be bought at discount (I don't remember now why I chose to look for that article in the first place), I've Googled random terms that came to mind, ending with a search for electric cars and hybrids.

I have checked the time at intervals, noting its passing, and noting that I am not getting anything done, And I asked myself, "Why am I doing this?"

What type of pleasure am I getting out of this? It's more than the intellectual/cognitive pleasure of learning new stuff. It's like a physical thing, a feeling.

And this word popped into mind: timelessness.

I know that time is passing, but the darkness, the silence, and the very fact of not getting anything done help to create a feeling as if it weren't. It's sort of like Flow, except it's not. Or maybe it's an aberration of Flow, a mal-Flow.

I feel like I could do this - Google in the dark, follow random link after random link - forever.

******************

Rather, I felt like I could do that forever. But now I'm doing this- writing a blog post: a significant shift in direction of my attention and a heightening of intention. Finishing this, publishing this, matters.

A few minutes ago, part of what I felt was a sense of nothing mattering. I don't mean despair, I mean indifference. A pleasurable indifference arising from the feeling of being disconnected from time. The feeling of timelessness led to feeling as if it did not matter what I did, and that feeling was not painful. It was rather pleasant. Okay, I'll say it - I was comfortably numb.

And it occurred to me that the feeling of timelessness may be a preview of eternity.

As a resurrectionist and an immortalist, I expect to live forever (along with everyone else) in a way that is not limited to this planet. Living forever will mean never running out of time, never experiencing a lack of time. Not being limited to this planet will mean not being bound by the 24-hour day.

I have tried to imagine this. How will we experience time? Or will we experience time at all? Will the concept itself fade away as useless - No time, only life?

And just now the notion came to mind that if time as we know it disappears, nothing that we do will matter.

In respone to which this notion popped up, knocking that one down: in eternity, everything matters.

It suddenly seemed clear to my imagination that the Christian's post-transition life will not be a life in which we need to redeem time, because the days are evil. Nor will it be a life in which we waste time. Rather, it will be a life full of good activity spanning galaxies, and ever-deepening relationships with an ever-increasing number of people, all rooted in intimacy with the Godhead.

It will all matter.

Now, iinteraction with lots of other people would seem to require some means for measuring time. Otherwise, how will I make my appointments with Johann Sebastian Bach for composition lessons (that's on my post-transition bucket list)? But what that means will be, I have no idea.

And given that I have spent 1.5 hours writing this (yikes!), now is not the time to figure that out. I am still largely Here rather than fully There, and here, I am already late for starting an insane day of meetings and tasks. I want to devote more time later to the matter of demonstrating eternal, galaxy-encompassing life within the context of time and space. For now, I'll end with: in eternity, everything matters, so for immortals, everything here matters now.

P.S. - I'm yielding to temptation: this came to mind while writing. Enjoy!

One Death, Two Deaths, A Deep Dark Puzzle

A police dog named Rocco died this week after being stabbed by an assailant. His stabbing, veterinary care, death and memorial service were all prominently featured in local media. I'm not providing links, but people in Pittsburgh will know what I mean; Rocco's story has been everywhere. Non-Pittsburghers, you can search "Rocco K-9 Pittsburgh" to see what I mean.

Perhaps this is a measure of my brokenness, but I have not been able to muster up sympathy, empathy or compassion for Rocco. The reason is that every time I thought of him, my mind refused to stick with the subject, and instead turned to the subject of a woman, a mother of five, pregnant with her sixth and engaged to be married, who was shot to death this week.

Susan Sidney's story grieved me so that I had no sympathy/empathy/compassion left for Rocco. Her family and friends are the ones that I have prayed for, not those who knew Rocco. More than that, I have grown increasingly perplexed this week as so many other people - who, like me, did not know either Rocco or Ms. Sidney - have demonstrated so much more concern for a police dog than for a person.

Again, this may indicate a flaw in my character, but I cannot comprehend how the extensiveness of the coverage and the outpouring of public feeling for Rocco have dwarfed those for Susan Sidney. How can Rocco have been the subject of four stories in the Post-Gazette this week, not counting an editorial ("Heroic Rocco: The killing of a police dog calls for justice"), and Susan Sidney the subject of one?

Perhaps one day my powers of reason will enable me to understand. But today, the fact that a "Justice for Rocco" Facebook page has gained nearly 50,000 likes in less than 48 hours does not break my heart - the news about Susan Sidney did that - it breaks my brain. 

Reminders sweet and rude

On Saturday, Oct. 6, Janet and I went over to City Theatre, taking our goddaughter, Catherine, to see her dad, who acts under the stage/screen name Atticus Cain, perform in the City's Young Playwright's Festival.

The festival presented six short plays by middle- and high-schoolers, three in the afternoon and three in the evening. Between the two sets, we all hung out in South Side Works for a while, then Atticus dropped the three of us off while he went to prepare. And Janet, Catherine and I wound up at this place - The Milk Shake Factory:

Image: Pittsburgh History and Landmarks Foundation

As we hung out there for bit, I puzzled over the question of whether The Milk Shake Factory used to be a retail store for Geoffrey Boehm Chocolates, a Lawrenceville-based candy maker that I worked for in the late 70s (I was a delivery driver).

I saw that the shop was full of goods from Edward Marc Chocolatier, and when I read the company story printed on the packages, I was 99% certain that it was the story of the same family that I had worked for. There were two brothers, Jeff and Bruce Edwards, their mom, whose name was Marie but who went by the nickname "Sissy," and her mom (or mom-in-law?), whom I only knew as "Ya-Ya."

They were Greek, with Ya-Ya having come over from the Old Country in..Lord knows when. And they exhibited the energy that some associate with Mediterranean folk - when I first started working there, I thought the company was in crisis because they all yelled so much. I finally realized that that was simply their way. They'd yell at each other and then I'd turn around and they'd be laughing with each other, just as loudly.

They were Christians, and like many in the late '70s, were involved in the charismatic movement (as was I). And again, they were as demonstrative in their faith as they were in everything else.

The brothers, Jeff and Bruce, were only a few years apart, but somehow were as different as they were alike. Jeff, the older, was more the hard-charging businessman; he wore suits and spent most of his time in the office, when he wasn't out on sales calls. Bruce was more inclined toward gentleness; he wore a baker's apron while he stirred massive batches of batter for varieties of candy and oversaw the workers on the production lines (who I recall as being all middle-aged women). Jeff viewed the Book of Proverbs as essential reading for business; Bruce read Brother Lawrence's "The Practice of the Presence of God" and wanted more of what Brother Lawrence described.

All of these memories arose in my mind while I loitered in The Milk Shake Factory, and with them, feelings of affection rose in my heart. I had loved these people, and would love to reconnect with them.

That desire lingered with me, and last Wednesday night, at something like 1 a.m., I decided to see if Google would yield a way to connect, or even just current information about the Edwardses.

I typed something like "bruce jeff edwards pittsburgh," and one item stood out from all the others that Google tossed up: an obituary for Pastor Bruce J. Edwards.

That was my friend whom I had loved so long ago, suddenly gone.

Glad to learn that he had become a pastor, confident that he had found the work gratifying and had served others well, saddened that I had missed the opportunity to connect with him, I gathered myself enough to write a note in the online guestbook.

And tried to absorb fully the import of this fact: he was 60 years old.

So am I.

Thinking about suicide (again).

Suicide is in the news.

First, "Soul Train" creator and host Don Cornelius was found dead in an apparent suicide. Then the Huffington Post reported that actress Keke Palmer is reaching out to teens after the suicide of 17-year-old Ashley Duncan in Houston,Texas.

This is striking for me because about two weeks ago, I considered writing a post that would open like this:

I'm not sure how old I was when I first considered suicide.

Something like that. I played with different phrasings, trying to find the string of words that would roll off the tongue most pleasantly.

Anyway, I'm not sure how old I was, but I think I was in 10th grade. And I don't remember exactly why I was considering it. What I do remember is why I decided against it.

I decided against it because I felt it would be the ultimate in ingratitude and in dishonoring God.

That has held up over time - in all the times that suicide has crossed my mind, it has merely crossed, not stayed - because the refusal to dishonor God that way has not allowed it to stay.

So when it pops into my head, it doesn't scare me. I reject it, and keep going.

I decided against writing that post a couple of weeks ago, because I feared that it would make someone panic, when my only reason for mentioning suicide would be to re-affirm my rejection of it.

Indeed, after that first time, I concluded that contemplating it, and deciding against it, might have made me stronger in some sense than someone who has never considered it at all. I have decided to live, in a way that most people haven't.

And most emphatically, in a way that Don Cornelius and Ashley Duncan didn't.

Writing at www.thegrio.com, Ronda Racha Penrice says that Don Cornelius' death in particular, should serve as a wake-up call for the Black community regarding mental health issues. I couldn't agree more. But how do we acknowledge that call? How do we wake up?

I think the first step is to spread one simple idea: it's ok to need help. If your car's not working right, you take it to a mechanic. If you suspect that your mind's not working right, you take it to a therapist. And it's ok.

Or if that seems like too much, you at least talk to...someone. Parent. Teacher. Minister. Friend. Bartender. Somebody. Face-to-face. Not to the world on Twitter or Facebook. To a real live person who can look you in the eye and tell you that it's ok to need help, and who just might help you find it.

Notes from a homegoing service

12 hours ago, I was sitting in the auditorium of Petra International Ministries, attending the homegoing service for Cora Mae Raiford and her oldest son, Kenneth Joseph Raiford. I wrote about it for "My Homewood."

I did not say this there: I am challenged by the reminder that we...no, that I...must love.

That loving is not sentiment. That it is practical. That it requires wisdom (for love seeks and works for the benefit of the beloved, and knowing what would benefit the beloved requires wisdom).

There was more, but this is enough for now: I must love.

Most of the time, I do not want to love. Most of the time, I want to regard my fellow humans as disposable objects of amusement or annoyance or financing...whatever, depending on my mood. Not as splendid creatures "walking around shining like the sun." (I think that's from Henri Nouwen's "The Wounded Healer").

(3/3/12: Nope. It's Thomas Merton, "Conjectures of a Guilty Bystander": There is no way to telling people that they are walking around shining like the sun...")