Open Writing

Many people argue that their status in life is a result of seemingly chance encounters or events that overtook them. Others claim that we make the choices that find us where we are today.

I turned 66 recently. That’s nothing special as many people have done the same, with any number venturing far beyond. My mother’s side of the family tended to live into their early nineties. So as I follow her in terms of physique and temperament and try to live moderately, I am hopeful of emulating their longevity.

I recall turning 17 and finally being old enough for a driving licence. At the time I calculated that I would be 55 in the year 2000. Yet 55 was too old to contemplate and 2000 was so far away. But it’s been and gone these past ten years.

With age comes introspection, which can be a dangerous thing. And increasingly it’s been pursuing me this last year, relentlessly nipping at my heels like a good kelpie trying to herd me somewhere I don’t want to go; forcing me to examine some of my attitudes and beliefs in an attempt to understand whether my life is in fact some sort of plan, or just a mish mash of unrelated circumstances and events.

‘Plan’ is perhaps the wrong word, as it implies a ‘planner’ and as one individual among billions, the logic of there being an entity to plan and control all these lives, is hard to accept. For me, the myth of a ‘divine plan’ remains just that. It may provide consolation for some but I suspect it’s simply a religious device to keep one warm at night and provide some sort of solace.

Yet many lives appear so structured, organised and without discord that, when compared with one’s own, there certainly seems to be an invisible hand exercising some sort of benign control. Although perhaps it’s a mistake to view other lives as an uninterrupted and logical progression without discord or tragedy; an endless story of success upon success. For despite the platitudes regarding empathy, would any of us would really want to walk in another’s shoes. Who knows what may be lurking there?

I look in the mirror and see someone who is in no way related to the excited seventeen year old itching to get behind the wheel. Yet it was yesterday, I’m sure of that. In that mirror I also see a guy who is relatively fit with no apparent health problems and only mildly resentful of joints that complain when the sixty six year old does seventeen year old things.

I see a man who is less than one hundred percent emotionally fit and so far as spiritual health is concerned, I’d be heaps better if the damn kelpie would leave me alone. Comfort zones are, well, comfortable.

For years I’ve enjoyed my zone of disbelief; firstly in my agnosticism and then, after reading a number of authors including Richard Dawkins, positively and perhaps smugly self assured in my atheism. And yet…

My search for understanding started over fifty years ago. That’s a long time to be adrift and without direction. A lifetime in fact. I realise now that my past flirtations with organised religion have been tentative stabs at understanding if in fact there is something more to a life than the acquisition of material success or ego satisfaction. I think there is.

I have a feeling there is a dimension I have yet to comprehend or grasp, yet it remains like a vague shape in the mist. But there are little cracks of light appearing, sneaking under the door like a pre-dawn promise of a sunny day.

I’m reading Thomas Merton again. I have an on/off relationship with Father Louis, captivated at times by the beauty of his prose, yet confused at others by his arguments. And even though I may nod cautious agreement with what he says, something still prevents me from relinquishing a position. Perhaps it’s simply pride with ego trying to assert its dominance once more.

The analytical, rational side of my brain processes the words and lays them out in the correct sequence but the message remains elusive. It’s still more comfortable to file it under myth and fabrication.

Yet I know that in the absence of some sort of epiphany or Damascan road experience, the kelpie, relentless as ever, will continue nipping at my heels.

Maybe the damned dog knows something I don’t.