Just Love

I found myself in confession the other day. My son was taking CCD classes and when I went to pick him up, realized there was a pennant mass with confessional following immediately after the service with twelve visiting priests from other parishes. I saw it as a perfect opportunity to slip in and get some of the guilt off my chest.
I rarely attend confession because it is usually at a strange time of day, maybe three to four p.m. on a Saturday, and it’s not like I’m overflowing with so many sins I need to unload them any chance I can get. Alright, these are bad excuses. I need to go to confession more. Bottom line.
I do believe confessions are useful. I believe in the power of talking about and facing the issues in your life that bring you down and make you sad. Sometimes something that might seem so insignificant and trivial to a stranger, is something that is literally eating us alive; something mean or bad that we said; some minor lie we told; taking some object that wasn’t ours; using another persons’ body for sexual gratification--these are all things that tear us up inside with guilt. But if we think of our neighbor doing these or a friend or someone on television, they often seem rather meaningless and petty, in the greater scheme of things.
I slipped into one of the long lines of parents and 14 and 15 year-old students that were forming in front of the confessional rooms.
Facing the priest brought naked fear to the surface. My heart was beating a mile a minute. I could feel the heat under my arms and the sweat drip down my lower back. My turn came. I entered the dark booth and saw the priest’s shadow hunched behind the mesh window, a little prayer bench in front of it with a simple prayer printed on card stock. I wasn’t too sure of the routine.
“Um, yeah, I don’t really do this too much. I’m sorry.”
“In the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.”
We both crossed ourselves.
There was a pause and I could sense his uneasiness at my uneasiness. “Do you have anything to confess?”
“Nothing that big.”
Another pause. I thought of all the carnal desires that burned in my skull along with little lies I might have spoken or getting angry or only thinking of myself or innumerable other minor transgressions but they all seemed too small and petty to mention. I almost felt bad I didn’t have anything really big and heavy to lay on him. But there was the one thing. It was the biggest question of all, and I knew beyond a shadow of a doubt, there was no way he could answer it.
“Sometimes I struggle with being led by certain desires. And this is really something that we’ve been dealing with for millions of years and even though I am aware of this constant struggle, still I find myself doing things I shouldn’t. Still I find myself being led into this darkness and ultimately reaching a point where I’m confounded by the utter pointlessness of it all. Like there is no meaning. Like once you have unraveled the deepest mystery at the bottom of all mysteries, it is just zero. Nothing. Emptiness. And I don’t want to think this way and thus yearn for annihilation, which is pretty much the death of the body but I can’t help reaching this point because I feel so overwhelmed and disheartened, and racked by such immense sorrow, the blackest, deepest sorrow, I don’t want to continue. I want to be free. So what is the meaning? Why the hell am I here?” I was about to scream: ‘what the fuck am I doing here?!’ “Is there some point to this endless struggling to satisfy my needs and seek happiness or will that only really lead to greater sorrow? In the end don’t you know we’re all just mowed under like so many blades of grass? I mean, I yearn for God’s love, but it feels so distant, so remote, so cold, so condescending, so maddeningly incomprehensible that my only recourse and natural goal as a human being on the planet earth is the roll myself up in a ball and tremble. Is that the destiny of man? Is that our great epic goal? Tremble for eternity? Is that my destiny? Please father, tell me something. Give me some encouragement. Drop me a bone. I am utterly confounded and clueless.”
There was a long pause and the priest sat up straight and I could make out his features a little better as the dim lamp in the corner hit him. He was pondering; maybe even troubled. His head was down. He was stumped. This was not a local priest. He was foreign, from India or the Middle East.
I thought I had really caught him off guard with this one. Today, after the endless train of masturbatory confessions, adulteress spouses, forged checks, throwing the old folks in the rest home, stealing the neighbor’s newspaper, where this priest had been spiritually lolled into a knee-jerk, quick-fix, magic bullet prayer response, now he finally had something to think about. You couldn’t just slide a prayer across a table and say, “here’s the answer”. There was no way he was going to wriggle out of this one. There was no “How to Answer The Question of The Meaning of Life”, in the Catechism Desk Reference For Priests. I almost felt smug and was about to stand up leave without another word spoken. That would have satisfied me; the only true answer to all questions: silence.
I looked down at the prayer on the little card in front of me. I took it in hand and scanned the text. I waited, almost mockingly, ready for him to tell me how many times to chant the obligatory prayer. Maybe throw in a few “Hail Marys” and “Our Fathers” for good measure. I had this guy up against the ropes. There was no way back from “Queer Street” now.
“Just love,” the priest finally muttered.
“Excuse me?”
“Just love. That’s it.”
“Just love?”
“Yes, just love. That’s really the only think Jesus wants from us and that’s his primary teaching. First and formost, “just love”.
I was floored. My God, yes! It was so simple. Yet so perfect. Just love.
“There is really nothing that you must do or achieve. You just need to love more.”
The dark clouds of doubt burned instantly away, revealing only bright sunshine. It was as if I knew this all along, way in the back of my head somewhere, but couldn’t remember it. Like an old book in a library, in some back dusty store room. All it needed was a hand to point it out and a quick dust off. “Just love”. Wasn’t this what all the major religions were telling us from the beginning? Wasn’t this at the heart of all dogmas, creeds and divine law?
Sometimes you have to dig a little bit to find it, but love is always there somewhere, no matter how cleverly hidden among the brambles.

Feeling Connected Pt. 2

I float up, a hundred feet off the ground.
I extend my arms and drift up to the zenith of the teepee with the smoke that is ebbing out into the night air, curling toward a coyote moon blazing orange and diaphanous like the devil’s iris in a parlor of twinkling diamonds.
I peer down at the little circle of celebrants beneath me who look like squatting ants around a cigarette spark. The flaming eagle flaps his wings in dreamy slo-mo. Whoosh. Whoosh. I feel my face wafted by the wind of his great wings, cool, breezy, even though they are made of millions of tiny, cherry-red coal fragments. The eagle hovers close to my face and I look into his eye that transforms from flaming ember, into a real eagle eye, full of wisdom and deep knowledge, unblinking, eternal, the Great God of Light and Air, the Protector, Vanquisher of Darkness, Giver of Eternal Peace. He conveys to me, through subtle intuition, that I am at one with the natural world, this earth, this realm, created by God for our majestic quest for truth and to find ourselves which is really only finding God again.
My God it is so simple, so radiant.
For one brief shining moment I achieve absolute knowledge, the realization that I myself and the universe are one and God is everything.
Then the Great Spirit Eagle shows me atoms. And I see atoms in my bed while I sleep. I see the atoms of my bedspread, my pillow, my sheets, spinning, constantly turning and bouncing every which way. Then I am in a trawler off of Anacapa, my hook skimming the reefs for rockfish, bat ray, guitar fish, barracuda, sea scorpions, thresher sharks and I see atoms too. Then I am running in a forest on Mt. Rainier, chasing mighty elk through dense thickets and there are atoms. Then I am riding the Bonzai Rapids on the Kings River in a flimsy pool raft and there are atoms. Then I am at work, amid the boredom and monotony of my little desk, chair and computer, and I see atoms. Then I am chasing a ball on a playing field and people chase me with atoms. And I am floating in the blue waters of a cinote in Chichen Itza, swimming amid the hundreds of tiny brown catfish and I see atoms everywhere. And then I am in a vast sea of cars on the 405 moving along endlessly in a gigantic river, millions upon millions of cars, and I see atoms too. And I am walking amid the throngs of people at the fair in Ventura or at a football game or soccer match with a crowd of ninety thousand at the Coliseum who are atoms. Then I am sitting alone, at night, on my living room floor, in my silence and everything is atoms. Then I am a child lying in the snow of Olympia, Washington, waving my arms to make a snow angel and it is all atoms. Everything atoms always.
The flaming eagle drifts back, smaller and smaller, floating down to a distant mountain a thousand feet below, disappearing behind a snow-capped peak, at the bottom of the teepee.
Holy Shit! They slipped me something in the tea. I dodged the peyote and still mind has conjured up multifarious visions. Sneaky Indians.
Eight hours into the ceremony, I am no longer at one with the burning eagle, the atoms or anything else. I’ve had it with the damn absolute knowledge. Screw the freakin’ eagle.
My knees ache. My ankles ache. My stomach aches. My back aches. I only want to get the hell out of the friggin’ teepee.
When Randy originally told me about the ritual, I thought, alright, maybe an hour or two, your standard ceremony length, get in, listen to the sermon, say some chants, dance around, we’re good. We went into the teepee around dusk on Saturday night. We didn’t get out until around eight a.m., the next morning. Let me repeat that: eight a.m. the next morning! No wonder you need the peyote -- you’re in a teepee, sitting on your laurels for twelve hours! TWELVE HOURS! Sitting! I haven’t sat anywhere for twelve hours. It’s hard enough for me to sit for an hour let alone twelve, on the floor. I couldn’t sit for twelve hours in a Lay-Z-Boy with a remote watching the World Cup. I’d have to get up, move around sometime, step out for a drink, grab some chips or something.
With the heat of the sun warming the teepee, the Fire Man covers the smoldering embers with dirt. People make their way into the open air. I stand up, my knees creaking, ankles sore and aching, and the chunks of peyote scatter over the dirt floor. I freeze, looking around to see if my iniquity has been detected. Everyone is collecting their things, oblivious. I drop my sweater on the scattered pieces and coolly stuff them into my pocket.
Randy and June are disappointed with me when I complain to them in the refreshing sunlight.
“That was absolute torture. I had no idea it was going to be so long.”
“You didn’t take the peyote,” are the first words out of June’s mouth.
How did they know? Everyone was spaced out and it was semi-dark in there.
“I drank the tea.”
“It doesn’t matter. The peyote was very vital to the ritual, Jay. That’s why we call it ‘Father Peyote’”, says Randy, accusingly.
“I didn’t feel comfortable.”
“Then why did you come in the first place?”
“I really thought I could connect without the drug.”
“It’s not a drug. It grows in nature. It’s natural.”
“I still just didn’t feel comfortable.”
“You disappoint me, Jay.”
“I’m sorry, Randy.”
“Until you learn to have courage and take chances and face your inner struggles, you’re never going to get where you need to be.”
Bottom line, I was a bad Indian.
I tell them I am tired and need to leave. Everyone has brought food and this is the potluck/socializing time but I want to duck out, go home and sleep. That’s all I can think about.
I catch Rick, the Road Chief and his sister Glenda’s disappointed looks as I shuffle to my car. I try to strike up small talk with them but they give me the cold shoulder. I try to tell him about seeing the Great Spirit Eagle and being carried a hundred feet off the ground and seeing everything as atoms but I am still a dick because I chucked the peyote in the weeds.
One other guy also suffers the humiliation of the outcast. This is the only guy who left the teepee early that night. He is a young white guy with glasses who looks like a carbon copy of myself. He also says he had the vision of being carried off the ground. Everyone seems to avoid this guy like a leper. He is worse off than me because he left the teepee prematurely and broke the sacred hoop.
I drive home, trying mightily to keep myself awake and almost dying about seven times from dozing off and drifting over the center line and getting in near head-on collisions with eighteen wheelers.
I never see Randy and his wife after that. I try to call but he avoids me. I want to apologize and tell him that maybe it was too much for me but he should have for-warned me about the twelve-hour-on-your-ass-in-a-teepee-Indian-ritual-thing. Would have been nice. I was thinking it was going to be camping in Ojai with maybe a one hour ceremony, dancing chicks, head dresses, the whole nine yards. Right now, I don’t have the faith or stamina for twelve hours in a teepee. Get back to me in about twenty years.
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