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we fill time, waiting
for it to fill us

this morning i hear a cardinal, calling
from some perch invisible, singing
a tune I cannot understand

and yet i do sense something, forming
as bird song fills the air, echoing
within the rafters of my being

what should i feel when i pause, listening
to life i don't understand, hearing
my own pulse bound within?

a roadrunner presented herself this morning, strutting
with defiance over the powdery earth, eyeing
me as if i was not there

she was in no hurry, idling
in the path before me, staring
into the distance as if she knew something

no clock in her nest, no measuring
device strapped to her torso, her legs baring
themselves to the task of nothing

at least nothing 
that either of us could name

so i stopped
she stopped too
we both simply waited

and somewhere, in
a place not so far from here
the minutes of morning 
released their grip on meaning.

A question has been debated in human history for as long as we have documented such things: am I responsible for my own decisions? At first blush, this seems like a silly inquiry; of course I am. How could I not be? I choose what time to set my alarm, whether to get up when the alarm goes off, what to wear in the morning, whether or not to eat breakfast, and whether to make it to work or class on-time. It is up to me if I smile or frown at people, if I develop or squander my talents, or I lead a moral life or not. How I will be remembered, what legacy I leave or contribution I make, is a matter of how I live, me, not how you live or how social conventions shape me or some other set of circumstances or external forces. Only I can captain my own ship. Only I can choose the course of my time and fate on earth.

Further reflection weakens the position of complete autonomy. We don’t choose (to the best of our knowledge) our birth date, our bodies, or the conditions in which we arrive in this world. And the birth lottery can be fickle, even brutal. As can be the physical shapes in which our budding consciousness finds itself. Or the events that may occur during our developing years, the things happening around us, the sometimes unpleasant or hateful things done to some of us. What are we to make of the powerless position of youth and the formative influences outside of its control? How are we to hold ourselves wholly accountable for our genes, the imperfections of our bodies or personalities, and the state of the city, community, or planet when we each individually arrive, grow, and develop into people we have come to call “adults”?

Science, philosophy, and religion have offered divergent perspective. The opinions within each of these fields have, over time, also changed. What was predetermined to Newton and Einstein is now much more probabilistic according to quantum theory. Time, space, and personal identity are no longer fixed, finalized, and firm. A person is mind, body, and spirit. While the architecture of such a holistic view is nowhere close to being understood, the walls that formerly divided the disciplines of study and existential reference seem, almost on a daily basis, to be less formidable barriers to a common sense of being than centuries of textbooks and dogma might have us believe. Physics – having definitively demonstrated that subatomic particles do not follow rules consistent with locality and linear external reality – seems in search of spiritual insight through language that is remarkably similar to ancient wisdom traditions and the best of humanity’s longstanding instinct for philosophy and faith.

Recently, I attended a workshop on wellbeing in health care. Led by an impressively talented faculty from a prestigious academic institution, we began our course of study with a consideration of the landscape in which clinicians working within major health systems currently find themselves. Tables of workshop attendees identified and shared a range of influencers on the wellbeing of the health workforce. “What is missing?” the session facilitator asked the room. Some additional ideas were shared and identified, followed by a prolonged pause. I felt my arm rise in the air. A microphone found its way into my hand. “What is the role of spirituality?” my voice asked. “Many traditions speak of health as a combination of mind, body, and spirit. How should spiritual health be part of the conversation on wellbeing?”

Whether or not those were the exact words I used to frame the question, it is not the sort of inquiry I would typically offer in such a public environment. To begin with, I am, at best, a novice seeker in the realm of the spirit; the waters of faith have always felt rather murky for me. In addition, I’m not someone who looks to be labelled, especially as the religious or squishy spiritual person in a setting of academia and medical science. The safe choice is to think the iconoclastic but not say it. Keep the belief out of the statistically valid. Separate church and state, personal and professional. So why I permitted my hand to pull me to stand and ask a question about something I know so little is perhaps part of the marvel of the universe and its tendency of late to dissolve boundaries. My right hand and arm felt like something needed to be said. My voice went along with the instinct of that extremity and said it. Whose will was at work in that surprising action?

The topic I offered made the written list of influences. It did not, unsurprisingly, generate much open discussion during the workshop. But there was a fair amount of sidebar, more direct dialogue. Throughout the days that followed, a number of people approached me privately to express their own desire for a more complete conceptual framework of health. As individuals, we seek something bigger than ourselves. Within our bodies, we sense something grander than the law of gravity. Among each other, we yearn to experience the joy of the collective, the freedom of the spirit, the release of something some dare to call the soul.

I don’t understand “will”. It amuses me to see the word used in so many ways, such as: a desire or wish; a legal declaration on the disposition of personal property after death; the plan of the Creator; the headstrong behavior of a child; a man’s name; the determination of an individual or group; the faculty of deliberate intent or discretion; a future state of action or being. It can be a noun, verb, or adjective. It can be loud or quiet, positive or subversive. It can reference human consciousness. It can signify the divine.

Who is responsible for my choices, or yours? Me, you, both of us, all of us, the prime mover of life? The intellectually isolating answer to each option is “I don’t know”. The mystically binding reply seems to be a simple “yes”.

Let’s keep raising our hands. Let’s keep saying yes.

An old children’s necklace sits on the left side of my bathroom sink countertop. A worn-out elastic string of plastic, multi-colored beads and baubles, most of the necklace’s violet and soft red trinkets are the shape of tiny hearts. Although I like to arrange the string into the larger shape of a single heart, the contour of my design gets sufficiently ruffled and displaced such that regular adjustments are required. Sometimes I even have to lift the string into the air and start anew.

It’s a bit silly, I suppose. I know that the actual human heart, or the heart of any living thing, is not so even and symmetrical; a few notches and dents are probably more realistic than a smooth shape resting atop the countertop. Yet I must admit that I feel better, even slightly, when the necklace of faded curios takes the form of a more perfect heart. It reminds me of my children when they were younger, before the world demanded at least a modicum of desensitization from wonder and fantasy. It does the same for the young boy still alive within me, the one who secretly thrills at the possibility that there is more to life than is visible to the naked senses, that there is magic at work and play in our lives if we only seek and stay open to it.

This past week, one of my daily mindful exercises asked me to meditate on my possessions. Which ones were most important for me, today? Which ones would likely be most important for me in five years? I was walking in the evening heat while listening to the recording. So the first things that came to mind were my water bottle and my shoes. Sunglasses were helpful but, no, those weren’t vital. Oh, sure, I shouldn’t forget that recordings and materials I could listen to or read, those were valuable. As was the house that sheltered me, and the car that offered mobility. The rest of it? My list was rather short – especially when I was forced to consider what I found valuable through the lens of the physical possessions. However, everything on my surprisingly short inventory of top possessions evaporated like moisture in the desert air when I was next asked to consider what it was in my life that I most “treasured”. That list was quite different. It was the people I loved. And the memories of those who have died. It included my stumbling steps toward spiritual development. And the hope that some day, before my own death, I might better reach some higher state of enlightened being.

When asked the above questions, my internal replies did not take long to formulate; despite being buried beneath the debris of daily duties, what really matters burns bright in the realm of the soul. Ask the spirit – not the body or mind – about its priorities and the truth, when allowed to be shared freely, bursts like bright light from an unrecognizable source. But why had I been asked to uncover the treasures held closest within me? The recording offered the following: For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.

My shoes traversing the rocky high desert soil, I let the line sink in. Where my treasure lays, there also will be my heart. Yes. The heart as metaphor, for compassion; as symbol, for love; as physical representation, for the “why” of life. The heart also as embodiment of feeling, the expression of purpose, the acknowledgment that what endures, beyond the factual summary of my activities over the decades or the details summarized by my curriculum vitae, is so much simpler, so much less amenable to categorization, so much more exposed and fulfilling.

Who sculpts the quotidian contours of the human heart? We do. You and me. Do we manage the heart as if it needs containment? Or do we release it, and ourselves, to the boundary-free experience of vulnerable being, of selfless love, of faith in the treasure of unity and integrated breath?

On the other side of my bathroom sink, just opposite to the children’s necklace, is a smooth stone that my wife gave me some years ago. The word “trust” is painted on the stone. I’ve positioned the stone atop another gift received from her, a square tile with the decorative inscription “I love you”. Until today, until just moments before I typed these words, I had focused on the word “trust” and the placement of the stone within the hand-painted flower at the center of the tile. It is beautiful. It symbolizes the power of commitment, of my wife’s love. Just now, however, I noticed something else inside the wonderful display of marital affection. On the stone, just beneath the word “trust”, is a small painted heart. Oh! The message on the stone is not just trust. It is trust heart.

Yes, I am blessed with the love of family; I must remember to trust in the love that I am given. But I am also blessed with the choice to trust my own heart and to trust the love that I am fortunate to be able to give others.

And that there, that right just there, is, perhaps, my greatest treasure. To think that it has been right before my eyes, in plain sight, for so long.

We look to history’s great spiritual leaders and prophets for more than wisdom. They were, after all, able to manifest the divine through miracles of healing, faith, and compassion. When I meditate or pray in their names, I feel closer to the source of such majesty. It humbles me. Holds me. I sometimes feel welcomed into a presence which defies any effort to name or comprehend. Nameless, this essence of totality simply accepts. I am – because it is.

Years ago, as a medical student, I learned how to study the human body and its constituent parts. There are lots of components to this thing we call life. Even forty years ago, there was far more than could be memorized. Still, my classmates and I tried. We peered through microscopes, dissected through layers of physical matter, and analyzed various formulae. We learned to observe, to identify patterns, and then to assign names to those patterns, prescribe treatment methods for disrupted functions and behavior, and adjust those methods in response to observed changes in the original patterns. It’s not a bad system. In fact, it often works quite well, especially for medical problems and conditions that nicely fit frequently observed disease constellations.

But the approach is sometimes challenged by situations without an obvious pattern, as well as experiences that do not neatly take the shape of expected illness or recovery. There are people who worsen when they should get better. There are others who get better when things should have deteriorated.

We didn’t much discuss miracles in my training. The word suggested religion or, at the very least, spirituality. Admitting to a belief system that incorporated spirituality could bring frowns and annoyance. Hope in Allah, Yahweh, or God was no substitute for the right antibiotic or prescription. The scientific standard, even one that referenced the “biopsychosocial”, rendered unto religion what was indeterminate, and unto medicine what was measurable.

So no one said anything when they felt the spirit leave a dying body and hover in the upper right corner of the room. We didn’t dare mention aloud the powerful sensation that something else was involved in a decision to order a certain test, continue a certain therapy, or simply to stand by, allowing healing that was well beyond our individual capability to occur. A conversation about faith was for the priest, rabbi, or religious advisor. We stood on the ground of science. Unfortunately, because it was not the higher ground, our vision was often obstructed.

Thus far in my lifetime, I have witnessed many miracles. Some have been medical, while others have been part of the so-called everyday fabric of experience. None of these miracles have been my doing. All have been inexplicable – when viewed through the limited refraction of the lens we call science. The more I am able to slow, however, to witness and to accept uncertainty, the less hazy that lens seems, the less disconnected I feel to the greater power flowing through and around me, and the less resistant I am to name something otherwise unpredictable as marvelous, even miraculous. Spirit moves in and around us. Physics calls that spirit ‘dark energy’. Religion calls it the Creator. My soul calls it a welcome comfort of wonder.

Four decades ago, I stood before a microscope in histology laboratory and learned to recognize human cells based on staining and other coloration techniques. I never learned how to properly use a binocular scope; it was easier to close one eye and avoid feeling dizzy while quickly spying inside the microscopic world of cellular pathology, searching for abnormality. The lesson was always there to be found, because that was the point of the teaching exercise. And so I went hunting in monocular fashion, sufficiently naming the errors to pass the class and move onto more macroscopic considerations of human health. Nonetheless, the real action, I was taught, lay at the cellular level. That was where medications worked. It was where cancer developed. It was how the fundamental workings of the body could be explored, understood, and manipulated. That is where, someone once declared, “God lives”.

I think God lives a higher level. For just as a single cell in a solitary tissue that makes up one organ that is part of an individual human body cannot comprehend the workings of the entire body, its state of health, and from whence the energy that flows to that cell arises, neither can a single human in one family unit living in an individual city on the third rock from a central sun in the Milky Way galaxy ever expect to understand how all this works, where it all comes from, where it all is heading, and who is responsible for its more marvelous features. Despite this, that single cell, and the human in which it resides, can recognize their roles. They can enfold themselves in the good fortune of being part of something grand and sometimes glorious. They can smile at miracles when and as such miracles manifest.

And so I turn – right now, in this moment, through the asynchrony of the miraculous – and I smile at you.

This one was different. Although I have had occasional “airport anxiety” dreams in the past year, the kind when you have a flight you must make but somehow nothing is working right to get you to the terminal on time, this dream was more specific, more intense, and seemingly much more real. I was alone in London, walking at a brisk pace, pulling a single bag of luggage. There was an underpass and then a very busy street. People jostled. Daily business rushed by. I tripped on a curb. Unless something changed, I was going to miss the flight. I pressed into the sea of activity around me. Suddenly, a large van pulled up alongside. Its sliding door opened. I noticed that it was full of passengers, each facing forward.

“Going to the airport?” I asked the driver.

The figure in the driver’s seat smiled. So I got in. A single seat was free in the back row. I took it.

“We’re going to airport, right?” I asked again. The driver caught my eye in the rear view mirror. Then he pulled the van away from the curb.

It felt better not to run, not to drag a heavy piece of luggage through the chaotic outside world, not to sweat in labor over an attempt at being on-time which I knew was futile without help. Perched on the edge of the van’s plastic bench seat, I watched the bustle of the day pass the van’s side window. Maybe I would arrive in time after all. Maybe I could rejoin my family who, for some reason, were traveling separately.

Slowly, the scenario out the van’s window began to change. What began as urban clutter transformed to less active side streets. Brick row homes eased into view. The street size narrowed. Perhaps the driver was taking a short cut. I looked about me, wondering if any of the other van passengers were alarmed. None seemed to notice the change in our route. All sat calmly, without expectation.

“Hey!” I hollered to the entire van. “We’re going to the airport, aren’t we?”

Alarm recirculated through my veins. I shifted nervously in my seat. The driver did not look up. No one in the van acknowledged my question. I turned to the two people seated to my left, two woman I had not previously noticed. The woman immediately to my left side was wrinkled, withered, and extremely old. Her shoulders were hunched, her white hair was wispy, and her eyes were clouded with swirls of blue. On her left side sat a middle-aged woman of dark hair and relaxed expression. The pair said nothing. The woman with dark hair leaned forward, looked at me, and smiled.

Why had I not noticed these two earlier? They had no luggage – but then no longer did I. Strangers by physical features, the pair nonetheless seemed familiar, or at least I seemed familiar to them. The hunched elder by my side appeared older than time. She spoke no words. And yet she seemed to be saying something that I could not hear.

Then, inexplicably, I understood: we were not going to the airport. We were – no, I was – well – this was a journey with a different destination. In an instant, and without announcement, I understand that I had died. I was dead. Without an specific memory of illness or accident, I was no longer part of the outside, regular world. We drove. I felt sadness well up from within. And then I felt the touch of the aged being to my left. Her single index finger, long-nailed and bent, reached up and gently pressed on the middle of my forehead. The contact was light. The effect was immediately and overwhelmingly comforting, reassuring. All anxiety, all care, all concern left me, as if in a single heartbeat. I felt myself float. I was dead to the body yet alive to the spirit. I was buoyed in an embrace of acceptance. Asleep, still in my dream, I was awake, somehow, in my being. Never before have I experienced such a pure state of peace. Never before have all states of consciousness seemed aligned in harmony and balance.

Recent weeks have presented me with a tumultuous mix of joy and sadness. In the midst of the commotion, I have, on multiple occasions, experienced a sort of inversion of the normal sensory order, almost as if my insides are no longer enveloped by my physical form but were instead externalized, exposed, untethered. Humbled by the brief dream-state experience with the van and with absolute calm, I have come to wonder – with hesitant detachment – about identity, role, and responsibility. I am someone accustomed to action. Problems have solutions. Challenges in life can be addressed. Perhaps, I am learning, it is not so simple. Perhaps, the touch on my forehead instructed, boundaries and burdens are not so easily circumscribed.

Yesterday morning, relatively mindless over a cup of tea, I was soundlessly visited by the melody of the Beatles’ “Let It Be”. I listened to the arrival of the music in my mind. Then I found a recording online and heard the song anew through my physical senses. I sought out the piece’s history, and read that Paul McCartney wrote it immediately upon awakening from a dream in which his mother, who was named Mary, repeated the phrase “let it be”. Since the song’s release, fans and followers of McCartney’s music have wondered if “Mother Mary” in the melody meant more than a memory of his biological mother. McCartney said no.

But I can’t help thinking of the woman who visited me in my dream. Her gaze was impenetrable. Her presence was archetypal. Was she an ancestor? Or might she have been a fellow earthly traveler, a Tibetan elder from across the globe who, on that night, died from her body and, with others in that not-so-metaphorical van, moved from the human world to the next plane of existence? Had I temporarily joined her, and others’, journey to the great beyond?

Maybe. It is also possible that the strange woman on the van bench next to me may have been – may still be – a spirit guide, an archangel of the cosmos, a guardian angel in my own journey in this strange and unusual form I name as myself. Her touch released me to the miraculous experience of letting myself, and everything around me, simply, and beautifully, be. Accept, my vulnerability. Surrender, to grace. Open, to inspiration. Act, with less prideful ownership.

Whisper words of wisdom, let it be.

It is powerful and persuasive – the Fear Of Not Fitting In. A relative of FOMO (the Fear Of Missing Out), FONFI motivates us in ways that we often fail to recognize. It is typified by behaviors of the young but not restricted to any particular phase of life. It can be obvious, especially in hindsight; my life path is littered with decisions and situations large and small when I said, did, or skipped saying or doing something because of my fear of not fitting in. I can smile at most of those sillinesses now, even if that smile is connected to painful memories and experiences. Tears, however, are more appropriate for certain circumstances. Selective amnesia offers welcome balm for the wounds incurred in life from wearing shoes that do not match the contours of the metaphorical feet we work to shove inside.

What though of the innate desire to belong? Surely there is nothing wrong with that. Have we become so individualistic that any pull to participate must be recognized, rebuffed, or expunged?

Not at all. Because the drive to fit in, to be part of something more than ourselves, is not the problem. Instead, it is the fear of isolation that is the culprit, the trepidation or terror associated with separation and distinctness that can cloud our judgment or fog our focus and decision-making. It is the running from rather than to which is problematic, the avoidance, for its own sake, of separation versus the embrace of the liberty granted to most of us to choose, as individuals with free will and autonomy, the affiliations we make, the directions we take, and the groups or traditions we join.

What I do not imply: individualism is supreme. What I intend: we each have accountability for what we say, how we act, and which causes we commit to.

What this is not: an indictment of FONFI and its excesses. What this is: a celebration of the human capacity to collaborate and the courage required to do so.

When I began this post, I intended to relay some stories from my past, examples of FONFI manifesting in my own journey. Some, like the time I joined the college football team as a barefoot kicker, are amusing. Others, such as my initial career choice of surgeon, are more substantive. I could probably fill many pages with memories of my own FONFI moments and escapades, selections from the various chapters of my timeline, recent and remote. Yet I know, as I type these words, that is not why I chose this topic to write about. There is something else that needs to be said – if only I can overcome my hesitancy to say it. I am, you see, reluctant to share too much of myself, lest the external world, contemporary or future, judge me unkindly for it. What if you misunderstand me? What if you misinterpret my intent? I am, simply put, fearful of not fitting in.

And yet –

When I kneel each night by my bed, when I relearn what it means to offer thanks to God and the Creator for the blessings of the day that is ending and the one that is yet to be, I do not feel alone. When I find solace and truth in the prayers accumulating on the bedside table, especially the one to St. Joseph the Worker, I do not fret about ostracism or exclusion. Spirituality has slowly unveiled itself to me through readings and experiences that are not specific to one religious denomination. I am learning that memorization and recitation of an invocation within the Christian, Hindu, or Buddhist traditions does not confine me to a label of Christian, Hindu, or Buddhist. Hand mudras or the sign of the Cross are not relinquishments to spiritual norms. They are attempts at connection with humility, with purpose beyond myself, with soul.

I began kneeling each night somewhat furtively. What might my wife say? Would she think that I was re-adopting the Catholic faith that I had left so long ago? Would she wonder if I was seeking to urge or impose that tradition upon her own spiritual framework? One evening, I simply told her. “I started kneeling each night before sleep as a reminder of my good fortune,” I said. “I don’t want you to be surprised or think that I’m trying to do convince you of anything.” She looked at me with slightly widened eyes, making me suspect that she already knew about the practice I had adopted. “Kneel away,” she smiled.

… to work with purity of intention and detachment from self, having death always before my eyes and the account that I must render of time lost, of talents wasted, of good omitted, of vain complacency in success…

Can you identify the tradition for this quote? Does it matter? It is, I believe, a good intention. It helps remind me of a greater flow within the universe, one that my spirit seeks to join, one for which my days might find useful framing from the guiding course of its current. When I release myself to that flow, when I relax inside the gentle embrace of an acceptance so much more than my mind can fathom, I feel that I fit in. I can breathe without chest wall movement. I am fleetingly free of the pains associated with confinement to a single human form.

My fears are washed away.

For years, I’ve had a book on my shelf: The Way Things Work, by David Macauley. Published in 1988 for “readers of all ages”, it is a delightful visual summary of how basic machines and technologies work. Not sure what a pulley? This is explained, more through pictures than words, in a section entitled “the Mechanics of Movement”. Can you fix that lawn sprinkler? You can learn about worm gears and sprinklers in two fun-filled pages under “Gears and Belts”. Over the decades, as I’ve winnowed my library of printed materials during many moves of work and domicile, Macauley’s book has always made the cut. It reminds me that it is possible, at a very high conceptual level, to understand things that I interact with on a daily basis, especially things invented by humans.

What though of things that don’t work? It is comforting, even empowering, to develop a vocabulary about mechanics, electricity, and the basics of the zipper. Might there be similar benefit to routine expansion of our understanding through the lens of mistakes, misfires, and simply silly human designs, interventions, and efforts?

A jaunt through my recent week offers some examples. Let’s begin with the audio functions of the Zoom call. Pushing the connect button for Zoom is easy; most of us have learned how to do this expertly. What is one to do, however, when the speaker function on the plug-in headset stops working? On Wednesday, I could hear people. On Thursday, nope, they were suddenly muted. All the computer keyboard indicators were properly silent. Could I make it work? Sadly, I could not. What about thinking of ways to assure the audio would not work? Aha! I found it: it does now work to use the microphone option on Zoom audio control when the problem is the speaker function. You see, if the problem is what you are not hearing, it does not work to try to control the other person’s microphone with the setting that manages your own. In other words, I could change the microphone function all day long and not fix the issue – something I can tell you from repeat effort. Why does that not work? Because it is the “speaker” function on the control panel that switches the sound from computer to auxiliary headset. It even says so, right on the control options. Once I found out what didn’t work, I was able to realize what did work and, almost magically, I could hear meetings again through the tiny wire connecting connecting computer to ears, saving my entire household from participating in the meeting experience with me. Thus, through the realization about how audio things did not work on Zoom, family peace and harmony were rescued. And my work productivity soared.

Instances of miscues abound, present all around us should we just look and listen. If watered, for instance, trees on the southern side of a northern hemisphere house eventually grow; it does not work to put solar panels on a roof during one decade when those southern-side trees will block out the sun a single decade later. Why? Trees like the sun. That’s what helps them grow. Consequently, if those same trees absorb the star’s rays before those rays reach the solar display on the roof of the house, well, the panels on that roof will not get rays themselves, and hence will not charge. And kaput goes their usefulness.

It is also difficult to read the pitch and grain of a golf course green when an inexperienced golfer is trying to make a crucial putt during what appears to be a competitive game with friends; it does not work for all three of the other players to provide simultaneous input on the aim of the one nervous golfer’s putt. The reason? The golfer with the metal club in his hand does not know how it use it. He gets flustered and ends up sending the small white ball farther from the cup than where it was when he began.

A young couple traveling through town may, after consuming alcohol in a local establishment, get into an argument; it does not work for a kind-hearted local who does not know the couple but himself previously had some bumps in life to reason with the perhaps ill-matched pair. Why not? Logic from a representative of an older generation cannot easily traverse the neural circuitry of youth, especially when that youthful wiring is bathed by the illogical chemistry of ethanol and its derivatives.

Three unleashed dogs walking on a footpath will, should there be opportunity, invariably leave their owner’s side; it does not work for the dogs’ owner to talk to her four-legged friends as if the group had signed a pre-exercise contract regarding the rules of walking off a leash. How do we know this? It is a well-known fact that most dogs (unless their name is Lassie) cannot read contracts. Plus a dog’s signature is too easy to forge and so none would ever put paw to paper anyway, regardless of the situation. Finally, all dogs know that any self-respecting member of canis lupus familiaris, under contract or not, will stray from its human’s side when said canine gets a whiff of grass or dirt, other dogs (leashed or not), or even the possibility of a squirrel.

The above are only a few observations from my travels in recent days. There were many more. And together we could probably cite other manifestations of the basic principles of non-working things from the arenas of public policy and the media, things such as communication techniques on the science behind vaccines, the application of ancient perspective of gun control to contemporary mass shootings, and a myriad of other topics and themes. There is, in fact, no shortage of evidence regarding the way things don’t work. It surrounds us with too much regularity. Why then, in such a state of abundance, don’t we avail ourselves of more opportunities to learn? What prevents us from breaking through, as a species, and putting our personal and collective experience into productive and collaborative practice?

Perhaps it is the mindset associated with change. Or maybe we just enjoy focusing on what is working rather that what is not. No one likes to look into a mirror and see their flaws. It’s too easy to do that with others. And yet our own flaws are usually all we see in the mirror, if we are being honest. Which is maybe why we like to see them in others. Which we in turn chide ourselves for doing when we look into the mirror. Which motivates us to turn away from the mirror as we age, tired of seeing our own blemishes, especially the ones behind the skin, eyes, and hair we see in our reflections.

But might it be easier if we found more humor in ourselves and our circumstances? Later in her life, my mom would sometimes start to laugh at herself, typically (but not always) when she thought no one was looking. Occasionally I’d be visiting and would catch her shaking her head, calling herself by name, and chuckling. If she caught me catching her, she would just smile and say something about how foolish she was. For a long time I thought that she was practicing the art of humility. Now I realize taht it may have been deeper than that. She may have been finding joy in the realization of the many ways that things – many for which she had accountability – did not work. Amazingly, she may have figured out how to make that work.

The identity candidates clamor for recognition, crowding together as if on cue. 

Physiology, the loudest calls, all of these tissues, organs, and limbs. There
are more cells in a single human body than people who have ever lived. There is matter, lots of it, shaped into a the unique form of you. 
True, shares an invisible view, except there is mind too. The ability to think and reason, the awareness
of joy, sadness, and suffering, the desire to know literature, science, history, art, language, mathematics, the potential to create -
Nay. Nay. 
There is a restlessness to speak. But spirit shall first have its say.
What is a "me" without the soul? spirit muses. What watches over mind when it thinks, when it
challenges in grand style the notion of continuous being, when it rests and sleeps, when it meditates, when it watches the rise and fall of the chest.
There is the sky though. Yes, the wind whispers. That is really the best 
way to find answers, or at least the birds and mechanical forms that inhabit it. 
And don't forget color, sound, and general sensation. Notice how perception organizes, into music and art.
A rustling beneath a bush inquires about creation. From whence does it arise?  The author may be quail, or squirrel, or perhaps the rattle of a disturbed snake.
Take care! An eagle alights with confidence on a pine tree, to the left side. An apprehensive 
ant carries its oversized cargo, down here, with frantic effort, on the right.
The boy in you would have stepped on that traveler, the clouds sigh. Nature nods, wonders how man learns to conserve his might for more wholesome interactions, for struggles that matter, for grand considerations 
such as the self.
Somewhere, cars are honking. People are pushing. Seas swell, ice shelves melt, walls are built, and
civilization presses itself together, expressing its will. Microbes proliferate. Some kill. Others bring health.
Sometimes there is balance.
What though of beauty. What of sorrow. What of the ability to glance toward a morrow that
may, indeed, yes, may always still be better, at least compared with the frame we name today.
Who gets to say? 
In the silence that follows, 
the group shrugs.
They are full of replies. None are answers. They know. As do I. 
We celebrate this: the ability to move. To read. To share. To notice the breath while the chest expands width and life probes for depth.

Where do I begin and end? How about you? 
Is it for me to judge? Does it have anything to do with
God. Yahweh. The Creator. The first cause.
The infinite.

I am - here now. You are - just the same. The universe is - always.
More? Nothing is for sure.  
The whole though, that must be. That is. That is what is.

Perhaps I am not who. Nor, then, are we, too. The universe though, it still is.
And the infinite remains. Call it what you may
yet recall that we are born amidst a great

mystery.
Such is the nature of mercy.
Such is the peace cradled by a simple 
smile.

Just there, ah, right there - I feel myself - 
if only for a short while.

Fear, greed, and success can be powerful motivators. But love is by far more influential.

I met an amazing young woman yesterday, someone I will simply call M (not the initial of her real name). Sitting in the passenger seat of a large vehicle, M had just received her first dose of the COVID vaccine at a mass public vaccination event in Phoenix. Before I approached the van, a colleague shared with me that M lived with a developmental disability and had been hospitalized three months ago with a serious COVID illness. Consequently, after M and her mom told me that she was feeling ok, I congratulated M for getting better from COVID and for bravely coming with her mom to receive the first dose of the vaccine.

“You were in the intensive care unit, weren’t you?” I asked.

“Yes,” M replied. “My dad was there too. Except he died.”

My heart ached. My instinct registered the momentous importance of the vaccine, both for M and for her mother. My eyes clouded with emotion.

A few words tumbled through my mask. “I bet your dad is proud of you right now.”

M smiled. Then we talked.

The temperature of the afternoon, the fatigue I had previously felt, the concern that I might wilt like a desiccated flower under the heat of the sun and tarmac and line of automobile engines all evaporated without effort. I was unexpectedly standing within one of life’s majestic and humbling moments, a timeless blink of existence when the world is no longer present, when individuality blends with universality, when breath, truth, and all the rich aspects of being resonate like the extended notes of a harmonious chord reverberating in an ancient cathedral. This experience, however, had no walls or roof. There was no container capable of defining or holding it. It was, quite simply, boundless.

Dare I say that I felt enwrapped in beauty? I have no intention of minimizing M and her mother’s loss; the pain it has brought their family was all too evident in their eyes, in the soft sadness of the air, in the spaces among that air, our words, and the bonds enabling hydrogen and oxygen to form the tears that swelled within me. Yet the love they felt for the father and husband who had been lost to a virus was as palpable as a gentle embrace from my own deceased parents. I was deeply grateful for M and her mother’s willingness to share that love with me. I felt a surge of strength that perhaps is best described as inspiration.

“Your dad is with you right now,” I heard myself say. “He wants you to know how much he loves you.”

I have no defense for the presumptuous nature of my remark. After all, I was only a clinician at a large community vaccine event. My job was to observe people briefly for possible reactions to the vaccine, to monitor and help reassure most that what they were feeling was not a serious problem, to identify the rare reactions that might occur, and to share information and try to answer questions. But I am a father. And a husband. If offered the opportunity, I would willingly and unflinchingly offer my own life should such an overture save the life of own daughters, my own wife, or the life of someone I love. Had M’s father made a similar offering when he and M were simultaneously in the intensive care unit? Would the Creator and the prime forces of life ever accept such an offering? It is impossible to know for certain. Yet given the story of the Easter and the Paschal sacrifice, I must believe that, at least sometimes, She/He/They would. Leaning against the driver’s door of M’s car, I had no doubt that They did.

Our time inside these bodies is precious. It passes quickly. None of us know what the hours may bring and when the moments of transcendence may hold us. Yesterday I was blessed with the beauty of M and her family. Today I am inspired by the majestic memory of spiritual sacrifice and rebirth. Tomorrow, if granted, is further opportunity to grow amidst the pathos, joy, and baffling sublimity of this thing we call a human life. Within our lifetime, there is the marvel of love. Within that love, there is always hope.

It has happened to us all. We are thinking of something else, or sometimes thinking of nothing at all, and an idea pops into our minds, a solution to some challenge or problem we have. For me, this typically happens when I am engaged in something physical, such as hiking and, when my knees used to cooperate, running. Or I can be bending over the pick up a dropped piece of paper, taking a shower, or just walking across a parking lot. My body is active, my mind at rest. I am not trying to avoid thoughts. I just don’t have them, have forgotten to either think or to worry about thinking too much. There is no meditative state being sought. There is just movement. And then, almost as if it is placed inside me by an invisible hand, there is an idea.

That’s your subconscious, you might be thinking. Well, sure, maybe. But using the word “subconscious” to refer to the vast uncertainty and murky experience that lies beneath the level of my awareness is like calling everything under the surface of the earth ‘subterranean’. It is little more than a name for a part of the world, its matter, or its presentation that we want to reference. It tells us nothing about that space or place. I have conscious awareness. And I have stuff beneath or separate to that conscious awareness. While I suppose it is useful to acknowledge that the separate stuff exists, it does not advance my understanding, access to, or leverage of that stuff. It merely frames the subconscious as a proverbial “black box”.

This argument, however, ignores the possibility that you and others have insight into the subterranean world of the mind and ideas. Because I bet you have theories and a set of your own experiences.

You might counter: Mark, your brain, mind, or whatever we want to call it likes to process problems when you aren’t consciously thinking about them. In other words, I am thinking about something when I’m not thinking about it.

Sure, I’m open to that. At work, I sometimes tell colleagues that a particular issue, something that feels serious and weighty but does not need an immediate decision, is a one, two, or three ‘night sleep’. We all identify with this, the occasional need to “sleep on” something. Doing so relieves the pressure of immediate analysis. It can help establish some emotional distance with a situation that, at first glance, does not seem to offer good choices. Or perhaps the options are clear but there is unhappiness or upset associated with them. We want to choose wisely. So we request the gift of time associated with one or more rotations of the earth beneath its sun. For me, particularly thorny issues require seven nights of rest. The extra time buffers the need to choose from the emotions associated with both selecting and then implementing that choice.

You are simply placing the problem into a queue for your mind to address when you aren’t paying it attention.

Uh, well, maybe. If the concept is that the brain processes and “thinks” without my awareness in a directed and intentional way, that sections of the brain work on difficulties with independent agency in the same way that operational components of a large organization tackle and report on assignments they receive, I can accept that such a process is possible yet I must admit to feeling a bit unsettled by it. It conjures to my internal image-making a set of subcontractors at work inside my head, each responsible for different tasks, all addressing those tasks in ways about which I have, and can have, no visibility or oversight. “Here’s a problem”, the main contractor I call my consciousness instructs its subs. “Report back when you have it sorted.” Then I sleep, have dinner, and carry on with the routines of my life while some tiny, immaterial parts of me busily process, sort, reprocess, and finalize.

No, no, you are framing this the wrong way. Those aren’t mini-consciousnesses. You should consider them more as software programs. Your brain is one large supercomputer. You give different parts of it scripts, bits of code, and it runs those code sets through neural networks that, in sum total, we call your mind. There is no conscious or subconscious. There is no mind at all. There is only the physiology of neuroanatomy and its intricately dynamic relationship with immunochemistry through a complex array of electrical and intra-cellular neurotransmitters. What you experience as your mind is none other than the experience of your own unique constellation of connections, synapses, and sub-cellular communications.

Yikes. Who said that? That’s not the direction I intended this blog post to head. I was expecting to share examples of great scientific and philosophic breakthroughs, stories of how individual people pondered, toiled, and set to solve sticky problems who were unable to do so with intention, chalk, or pen only to somewhat miraculously land on solutions when their attention was pre-occupied with daily life. I also thought I’d share my own recent experience of encountering solutions for unsettling circumstances when I have reached up during a stretching pose or massaged my scalp with shampoo while taking a shower. I wanted instead to speak about the immense potential of our innate ability to connect with sources outside of our physical bodies. Could our internal breakthroughs in thought sometimes arise from flickers of inspiration lit by our spiritual selves and how those parts of our being interact non-atomically with the immanence of other spirits, other consciousness, the collective spirit, and even God itself?

My fingers felt the need to rush those last few sentences onto the page, lest the voice or perspective that represents pure physiology establish connection with the keyboard on my lap before the intuition that motivates my imagination got its chance to express itself.

Swiftly though I recall – how I do this I don’t know – that light is both particle and wave, that existence is both solitary and communal, that experience is both explicable and ineffable. And in turn it seems fitting to mention how the German scientist August Kekule reported, in the nineteenth century, that his discovery of the ring structure of benzene was the result of a daydream involving a snake seizing its own tail while he was riding the upper deck of a horse-drawn omnibus in London. Some lampooned Kekule for sharing what sounded like an outlandish story. All the rest of us identify with the experience of ideas arriving inside our awareness seemingly of their own accord. We aren’t trying, like Kekule, to figure out the chemical structure of the world. We are only trying to sort out the meaning of life and the source of its inspirations. If the answer to that search involves a combination of mental software, physical hardware, and incorporeal engagement with a marvelous essence outside and within the experience I have come to know as “me”, well, I, for one, can’t wait to stop thinking about it.