The Sound of Life

Sometimes it feels like time is waiting on itself.  Like the “right” time or the fullness of time will never come.  That life is a perpetual waiting room and the real world is in the office behind those big closed doors.  Only once our name is called can we actually begin to start.

Ironically that cosmic name call is our death, the very hinge of time.  Without death there is no sense of time as we know it.  Death is the basis of all chronological time.  It is also the cause of our sense of urgency.  We are waiting to die.  But why?  Why wait on death like that?

Why not die now?

That sounds quite morbid, but perhaps it is quite simple.  We die now in order to bring vivid clarity to life now.  It is very much the idea of the Christian baptism.  We are baptized into death (Christ’s death) in oder also to be raised to life (Christ’s resurrection).     

We willingly lay down our lives.  Die.  Now.  In a very real way.  Deliberately.  On a date that we can remember.  But what we can not control is who exactly comes out of the water.    Once dead, we become something new.  Our resurrected self will be a whole new thing.

This is the journey.

Whoever comes out of the baptismal water is and is not us.  It is the us we don’t yet know.  There is a whole new thing here.  It is new because it has never yet been.  We are literally new.  Originals.  Created, now recreated.  Never before seen.  A new kind of species.  Look out.

Once this new birth happens we are thrust into the desert.  We are thrust into a time of trial.  Not to see if we have the chops, or if we are tough enough.  But to remind us that we are not.  And it is ok.  We are not alone any more.  The New One is in us.

From now on we are inseperable.

That’s the whole point.  We are part of a whole. We are not isolated.  We have never been isolated.  This is what mystics call mystical union.  The end goal.  The priority.  We were one.  And though fragmented, we are still one.  Getting back to this unity is the ultimate end.

That may sound like obscure mystical vagueness to some.  It may even sound dreary.  Dark.  The indistinct oneness lacks personal, individual uniqueness.  Maybe.  Perhaps real unity (or oneness), absolutely depends on that exact thing.  Each part.  Uniquely played.

Perhaps to find our way back to such unity we need to find our exact pitch.  Our unique note.  Only then, what at first sounded like discord might tune into something beautiful and complex.  An inspired symphony.  Real unity.  Even if we can only hear it for three brief seconds.

It is enough to know it is there.

We do not need to hear the entire symphony.  Not yet.  Tuning into our channel - our respective parts, is not about knowing the entire piece.  It is about knowing our parts.  Focusing.  Humbly releasing parts that our not ours to play.  Trusting the Composer to guide the entire piece.

We simultaneously let go in order to hold on.  We find life.  We find our notes.  We find that wavelength that is missing without us.  We strike the note.  It reverberates like gentle waves in the ocean. This is the sound of life. The sound of hope.  The sound of truth.

Stay in tune.  Stay on your wave length.  But remember: waves do not continue forever.  They will run into the beach and end.  Over and over again they come, but over and over again must end.  This constant cycle of our ending and beginning is part of the beautiful song of life.

Repetition is key, like any great art.  Not too much.  Just enough.  Not predictable repetition. Necessary repetition.  Like the beating of our hearts.  Just enough.  But not too much.  That is the sound of life.  The symphony vitale.  Where it begins.  Where it will end.