CoEternity

For more than 25 years I have been asked or hired to sing at weddings and funerals. Though the music selected by families for either milestone event can be anywhere from inspirational to inappropriate, my experience has been consistently positive, moving and spiritually engrossing.  Both the happy and the sad are profound. Of the two events, though, singing as a stranger, to a group of friends and family of the deceased has had the most profound, didactic impact upon me and on my spiritual curiosity.

Even when a long, productive life is more celebrated than mourned during a funeral, I am touched by the universality of our struggle to understand the finality which is being marked in the ceremony. And, too often, young people leave this life due to accident or illness, and the expected sadness, combined with welling anger in the grieving ones, has not had time to find its form. So, the mourners are in a state of shock and disbelief, and that benumbed silence opens the heart of an unrelated observer to consideration of all things spiritual.

As I consider the ephemeral, the spiritual and the transient reality of our conscious time as sentient, flesh-and-blood beings of earth, my certainties evaporate. I am then pushed by certainty of our physical death to confront all assumptions of life’s value. For me, the existence of spirit is a given; one authoritative definition of the components of that spirit and of its journey, however, does not exist for me. The very human act of asking sincere questions about “eternity,” “God” and “spirit,” nonetheless makes me surrender to possibility. Because of these experiences, I will never judge the spiritual conviction of another person, even as I fully reject any judgment aimed at my lack of allegiance or specificity in matters of religion.

The point of this declaration is to affirm that most of the content of my outlook in these matters was formed between songs I have sung while sitting at the funerals of people I didn’t really know. I normally sit near the organ or piano, in the front of the rear of the sacred space. Looking out at the gathering from my seat, usually out of the sightlines of those in attendance, I am awash in the helplessness of the moment. A good speaker, minister, imam, rabbi or priest brings light to the moment with talk of the good of the physical life, now over, of the person in the casket. Good memories and times of hope are relived, if only fleetingly.

Yet, as I listen, motionless and powerless in the presence of the lost one and the ones who mourn the loss, the soul-teaching moment surrounds me. It becomes ever clearer that I can never know any tangible answer to the eternal, intangible question; I am ill-suited for any declaration of certainty, doctrine or loyalty to any denominational legacy or man-made narrative. As a living body and mind I can never know what having, and losing, physical life truly means to the spirit which does, I believe, exist.

Even so, I am warmed by the reality of our gathered kindnesses, all pressed to let go and all exposed to comforting uncertainty.  If put to best use, these moments offer unsurpassed opportunity to nourish tolerance among those of us willing to allow for, and wonder about, the eternity of shared spirit. 

Walking into the old church building, the white one with its bell in the steeple from the late 19^th century, out in the countryside, we feel the presence of souls no longer occupying the flesh of this life. By extension, we are warmed by the assumption of God’s quiet, swirling nearness; we feel that we are returned to safety and comfort for reconnection with the tangibly ephemeral spirituality of our ancestors and their Maker.

But I get most of the same feelings when I walk into an old family home, touching and seeing the remnants of lives that came before mine, the ones that assured my arrival here so that I may ponder my place in eternity. Whether the house is from 1850 or 1960, I am moved by the thought that this place holds aspects of the souls who dreamed a life that eventually included me. The idea of God is also floating about, but more as common denominator, less as creator.

A belief in power beyond our bodies is amply documented as a human priority, dating from the earliest confirmation that we could observe and reflect upon our world, as by painting animals on cave walls or carving body parts from stone. Because we see our lives as a continuation of those that preceded ours, we are bound to invest inordinate trust in the remembered, but inaccessible, spiritual touch of past lives. This mystical connection offers comfort to many, whether by formal doctrine or simple, sensory memory.

Humans will, however, inevitably resort to firm definition and exclusive portrayal of spiritual truth, often imbuing it with hard, physical descriptions in an effort to make it tangible to the people who walk the earth now. From a clever, compelling narrative there often follows an opportunity to build a sect, a cult, a denomination, a religion, or a physical philosophy. For the good stewards of these spontaneous, human creations, power over the listeners who then become believers is the seductive goal. These leaders in belief don’t have to be cynical or power-mad to evolve in this manner; adoration accrues to the one who makes my soft hopes into concrete foundations, regardless of his motives. *

Our ability to feel--and remember--pain, relation, anger, hope and loss, makes:

My soul longeth, yea, even fainteth for the courts of the Lord:

My heart and my flesh crieth out for the living God. (Psalm 84).

            And the words “living God” hold the key to human response around the elusiveness of spiritual hope. During our good days, whether holding a grandparent’s hand, walking into the sanctuary as a child, or holding our own child for a christening in the same space twenty years later, we are covered in safety and implicit gratitude. We are open to the gifts so peacefully showered; the good desires within us are reinforced to seek their own replication through loyalty and selflessness. All of this is good, and it is routine in all forms of agreed-upon behavior attributed to multiple religious traditions across the earth.

            It is only after that baptized child dies when his friend’s meth lab blows up, or she is the victim of a drunk driver, molester, or he of a drone attack, food poisoning, AIDS, suicide—all of which occur every day—only when these truths attack are we taken back to the place of doubt and review of our full beliefs. Our reaction to what we learn from actual crisis defines our practical level of connection to our God. We are forced to confront again our trust of any force beyond what, and whom, we can touch.  We are changed spiritually by the lasting impact upon our physical world from death, sickness, injury, mental illness, emotional breakdown and all forms of change beyond our control.  There is a simple triage that results: we retrench, making vows to trust greater power even more; or we re-examine and adjust our spiritual assumptions; or we turn away from trusting beyond what we can manage by touch in the here and now.

            In conversations on such spiritual topics--from the existence of an active God, to the “everything happens for a reason” school of thought, through absolutism of all stripes and on to lazy, or careful, relativism—one is struck by the extreme variations. No two people of a given religion see its particulars in the same light; no two atheists have the same rationale for their rationality. In short, we are all selectively inheriting spirituality, making it up as we go along. We select the verses, leaders, philosophies, communities and friends, which complement our preferred balance of our non-physical components.

            It is, of course, only when another person claims a special power associated with their particular enlightenment; only when such power is turned toward compulsion and exclusivity and the accumulation of guns or money in the name of their revelation—only then do I personally turn the inquisitive lights off and walk out of the sanctuary marred by arrogant certainty.

I can feel the presence of the believers and doubters and accommodators in my bloodline. As spiritually firm as many of them may have been, I am certain that, whatever their manifestation in mystic ephemera at this moment, each would grant me the room and the time to get closer to truth, without my assuming that I will ever own that truth. I am not equipped to doubt that souls at peace leave peace to the rest of us.

            Arriving at that trust involving eternity, however, is ultimately between God and me. I can love you, my fellow man, but I will never trust any one of us to be the exclusive messenger of any version of that highest power.  Like St. Paul in a profoundly humble moment, I will only know Truth on that day when—and I must say if—I meet God, face to face.

*(It is important to note that good things are done by good people when they assemble to help others. Religious organizations are particularly useful in this way, as long as they don’t demand a pound of conversion flesh in return for kindness. May this outlet for good will be ever among us.)

Where did all the proponents of private school vouchers get their superior education, the education that makes them want to disavow public schools? Did they get it from prep schools and top 20 universities? This seems unlikely; those folks get in with cash and legacies. We are, probably, being harangued on this topic by former public school students who long for both upper-class status and for the imagined good old days––not to mention shelter from immigrants and other fearsome ethnic types.

In 2005, In Wilmington, Delaware, several committed teachers, fresh from college, began giving of themselves in challenging circumstances, working toward the intellectual salvation of a collection of middle-schoolers. The worthy objective of the enterprise is to secure, for the selected participants, grant-funded scholarships to private high schools in the Wilmington area.

This effort ironically makes the same case, though more stealthily, as the one made by voucher proponents: only by narrowing the sample can we ensure success; the system has failed, and only extraordinary measures taken by private individuals can turn this around. In fact, the leader of the Wilmington effort wants to limit that program’s size to 65 students in order to increase the odds of retaining 100% of those selected.

This is a formula for controlled success for a fortunate few. If the sample is limited, with even a moderate audition of character and intellect, results must naturally be superior to the results seen by those who may neither select nor reject a single student––those teaching in public school. Public schools have the noble mission of taking on all the kids that can’t pay for, or be accepted by, the programs of the wealthy and the high-minded.

The fact that these young Delaware teachers are devoting themselves to the betterment of educationally neglected kids is good news. But the better news is that plain, selfless public school educators give of themselves every day. Because a sense of mission guides their lives, good teachers are not permitted by their conscience to abdicate their responsibility to push opportunity in front of pupils. With a mix of something familial and something collegial, they ignite sparks of enlightenment every day in kids they could have only prayed for a week before.

At home, for most kids to have a chance to excel––or to keep up––they require nothing more than encouragement from at least one respectable figure of adult authority. This need not be a mom or dad, but it should at least be the same one who makes dinner or breakfast, the one who signs the kid up for something––anything––extracurricular and shows up to watch; someone who looks with pride or concern at the report card each grading period. Just one loving critic will do. Yet, even without this help, some kids break through anyway under the inspiration of the person at the front of the public school classroom.

Amid goofy, transitory educational trends and stingy budgets, most teachers get it right. Still, persistent underlying problems plague us. Many kids are forever limited by a negative adult example at home, or by parental assumptions that the education of the child is the responsibility of the school and the system. Some kids who get good food and plenty of sleep––between trips to the mall––are no better off than the actively discouraged offspring of bitter, underprivileged or underachieving adults.

Getting the private sector to cough up more money for poor kids is always good. Even though ideas like the Wilmington project are important and worthy of our good wishes, we must not lose focus on the larger picture. Public education demands our attention, undiminished resources and political support; our effort to reach the largest number must not be watered down by a voucher system. The required elixir for nurturing the broadest number of achievers continues to be societal agreement––sought by the parent or guardian, funded by the community and, finally, dispensed by the teacher to our beloved hope––the ordinary, deserving child.