Friday, April 8, 2011

It's a jungle


“What are you going to do when your home is invaded, and they start torturing your son?” someone is bound to challenge me. “Are you going to turn around and say, Oh, but you’re not really hurting anyone here; we’re all the same person et cetera?”
 

My answer would be, “No, of course not. This tableau feels as real to me as it does to you. It wounds me just as deeply.” But that doesn’t prove that I’m wrong, only that I’m subject to the same rules as everyone else. Being able to see a higher plane doesn’t mean that I get to reside there.
 

On the plus side, by accepting the Rickmansworth meme one banishes death. Now, that’s a biggie in anyone’s book. No death, for heaven’s sake! As jabberwocky, we’re immortal. Woowee! That’s better than a slap in the face with a wet fish, or even a cooked one.
 

Just a quick reminder about how that works. Our jabberwocky body has a span in every dimension, including time. It attains those dimensions and no further. It is static, remember? We’re not going to budge them no matter how we stretch and strain.



So why grieve just because you can't reach the honey jar on the upper shelf? Why mourn for the airy emptiness just beyond your fingertips? No one bemoans not having lived before they were born; if you’re not bothered how far that wing extends, then why would you worry about the other?
 

God is continuously tapping into and out of our jabberwocky's range of experience. Think of the keys of a piano. The notes are struck in chords and rhythms, scales and arpeggios, legato, staccato, fortissimo, pianissimo, ritardando (yep, I had lessons as a kid).
 

Your piano has eighty-eight keys corresponding—if you are moderately lucky—to that number of (nested) years. You are forever being played upon, that music savored by a god who would otherwise be at a loss for entertainment. Give yourself a pat on the back; you’re performing a commendable service. 
 

And so is everyone: friends and family, strangers and enemies, figures from the past, present and future. We’re all in the same boat on a grand adventure at least is as good a read as Philip Jose Farmer’s Riverworld series. To meet our cronies, there’s no need to wait until we go to heaven. We’re all on the same riverbank. Indeed, we're a veritable mangrove swamp of intertwined jabberwockies slithering in the . . . what was it . . . tulgey woods? 



No comments:

Post a Comment