The Mystery of Being

Are you ready to look in the mirror?  The ultimate one?  For reflecting back at us is something beyond our understanding, a mystery even to ourselves.  Our eternal self (the real owner of this body) is looking back at us in that dark reflection.  

This is the profound reality of our being…ness.

In that mirror we are like Adam, the first forefather, a man made of sand, animated by the very breath of God; suddenly from non-existence given life, being, consciousness.  

We are able to observe from inside ourselves the wonder, as we gaze at the handiwork.

All these millions of particles being held together in one perfect unity.

Take in this moment.  

Breath.        

Ahhhhh.

Take it in.  For these particles are slowly disconnecting.

Someday soon they will be millions of dis-integrated particles .  And we will be a body in a casket buried in the ground, decomposing into the same dust from which we started (don't google the decomposition of the human body ;-)

Morbid right?  Maybe.  

But also full of wonder.  How truly amazing that for now we are connected (oxygenated by the flow of blood throughout our bodies).  We are integrated.  Everything working together.  We are animated.  Alive.  Our bodies respond to our brain’s wishes.  Body parts move simply by willing them to.  We think and something happens.  

It is truly miraculous how integrated we are.  For now.

Body-soul-spirit.  Mind-will-emotions.  We are connected into one unity.  Seven octillion atoms working together to make us us.  Giving life to our bodies, meaning to our physicality.  It is truly mystifying, and actually humbling.  But ultimately temporary.  

This unity won’t last forever.  At least not in this form.  

These aging, breaking bodies won’t do forever what we want them to do.  Even if we do our best now to eat healthy and exercise, we can’t ultimately stop the breaking process.  Despite our deepest desires for life, our bodies are breaking down, slowly but surely. 

It is frustrating.  Even heartbreaking.  

The flesh is weak.  But by very nature our spirits are willing.  We can feel that freedom.  The energy and wonder of the child is still in there.  No matter our age, the spirit remains ageless, free from the corruption of our physical mortality.

It reminds us there must be something else, some place more fitting for our spirit’s boundless freedom; a place our physicality can match the agelessness of our souls.  

For now, that place is our imagination.  

Some will say such imagining is a waste of time, even a sign of weakness. 

“Focus on the here and now.”  Maybe.  But why?  If our vision of reality can’t see beyond this world, our view is too small to answer that question, at least adequately.  

Without meaning there is no enduring energy.  Without imagination, no better worlds.  

Can you see beyond this world?  Do you have a vision of life that can house your infinite longing for beauty?  Where life and goodness never end?  

This may be our real work, and the work of the creative today.  To help us imagine.  To inspire our belief.  To incarnate our deepest hope that there is something more in this breaking world than these broken bodies.  

There is more!  Can you believe?  And can you help us believe too?