Self-actualization through a piece of bread

All of us “deal” with tying family situations….

A few weeks ago, we all were informed of an illness with a favorite family member. I was talking to a friend of mine who had gone through a similar experience. He and his wife were so bitter from living through their situation and questioned everything about and around the universe. The “unfairness” that their family had to go though spawned a philosophical and very tying conversation. That afternoon I came home with a headache, wondering if I was crazy looking at the bright side of the situation, while so many people I spoke with over the week were so negative.

During these times I was taught to seek means of “invisible” support. Maybe you pray, meditate, talk to your higher self, seek out spiritual support from a clergy member etc…when I mentioned those things, he scoffed.

He didn’t believe in stuff like that, stuff that he could not see. His world did not expand beyond what he could touch or feel or have some influence of change. What spawned the headache was my notion that this person I cared about was holding on to a belief system that would hold him captive in a universe that has no hope.

‘If there is a God’ he demanded, ‘show him to me.’

Of course I could no sooner show him the definitive God than I could show him the quantum galaxies that lay at the very foundation of the world around us. I could neither articulate God nor explain God in a way that he would understand, other than to say that I believe he was all around us, beneath every turned stone and inside every split log.

I didn’t expect how much his belief bothered me and that they could not see (and, to be honest, that I could not articulate) that there is a lot more out there than meets the eye. Just because you cannot immediately see it does not mean it has no existence. And it also bothered me because I felt his pain and wanted to do something to help him and his bride. But what he required at that moment in time was beyond my scope, (mostly because he did not really want help, or even - felt – he needed help).

Maybe it was his arrogance that also bothered me.

I have learned a lot in my forty eight years on this spinning blue planet, enough to know that there is a higher power, and also enough to know that the ability to articulate the divinity is galaxies beyond my understanding, let alone my vocabulary. All I do know is that it is there, it is benevolent and I can access it when ever I want to. Overly optimistic maybe, but it is one of several ways I have learned to cope.

I wondered why he could not understand. I wondered why he could not see. And my wondering was becoming a noxious fog that became one more thing that bothered me. So I took a walk - as I am one to do - in the forest and meditated on my wonderings and I looked for a sign that might bring clarity to my thoughts.

When I got home and walked through the garage to my apartment it came to me, I was given a clue; there were two ants on my path devouring a grain of bread. (Humm...We probably should call the Orkin man.) They were completely unaware of my presence, or the fact that they were a size thirteen shoe away from total oblivion. I was way too big for them to see me. They would also, of course, have been completely unaware of the fact that they were - in our terms – only feet away from my flat (which if glimpsed for even a second would have seemed to these tiny creatures like God Himself). My car, the road I live on, the land where my condo was built, the city, the district, the country, and the world (in fact) would have been way beyond their perspective. As far as these two ants were concerned their (the) entire cosmos probably consisted of that piece of bread and the ‘vast and infinite’ garage below my apartment.

Then I imagined these two ants talking to each other (as ants, I am sure, are prone to do). Rather like I had just been talking to my friend. One of the ants is saying to the other, ‘no I’m serious, I reckon there is a lot more out there than you and I can see, other creatures, other worlds, I bet there is a whole universe out there that we don’t even know about, things that you could not even begin to imagine (I was an articulate ant of course!).’ And the other ant, scoffing back arrogantly, mouth full of bread, ‘Oh yea! So show me! You and your fancy ideas; if there was more out there I am sure I’d know about it, now be quiet and eat your dinner.’

The imagined vignette made me smile.

Just because the second ant cannot see the house does not mean that the house (the street, the city, the world) does not exist, and just because the first ant cannot articulate exactly what the house is, does not meant that his belief in the house is foolishness.

Then I remembered my friend and our conversation, my evangelical zest, his pedestrian denial, while all the time both of us, undoubtedly, were being watched over by similarly large beings, equally astounded and amused by our arrogance and by our very small perspective.

I understood.

In an instant I could see exactly why people do not, will not or cannot see. Many are small minded, more still are arrogant, and most are simply too scared to imagine that they/we might be little more than ants in some random cosmic garden. I also understood that I should not allow their lack of vision and their lack of belief (and their understandable fear) give me a headache.

I know the house is there, even if my understanding of it is not yet exact, even though my articulation of it is not yet fully formed.

The house is there and it is accessible and that is all I need to know.

Til next time…