Marriage: it's not about me, it's not about you: it's about us

The Value's in the picture the photograph, not the frame Velvet, Teak and Silver do not recall their names To keep alive the memories of friends and colleagues past renew their smiling faces: look through beyond the Glass

Thursday, December 9: just after 5:30 in the evening Lanie and Jacques will tie the knot, and I will have the great privilege of being there, to observe and celebrate that most important thing we do: commit to a future.

What is the thing that we do, this marriage?
And is it still relevant?

"Up till now, to just this moment before, to know you, all I had to do was to know you". This is what my grandmother said, and she continued "but after this moment, to know you I must also know this person next to you".

There is something subtly profound about that.

In this age, where it's all about you, all about me, all about self-expression and finding ourselves: marriage takes a different view. Marriage is a coming to terms of difference. The bringing together of two lives in the hope, in the prayer that much more will emerge from the union than could be had from the separation.
It is not just about finding your soulmate, it's not just about love ever after: although of course we all hope that that is what you will ultimately gain. It's a knowing, it's the knowing that you are planting the seeds of a garden, and a belief that if you look after that garden, a flowering will endure through to the ends of days.

Having said all that I was wondering: I was wondering about wedding presents. What do you give to a colleague? The strength of the relationship grew through the interaction of many people, not just the two of us. When I stand in the church tomorrow, and listen to the vows, the shadows of others will be around me, the colleagues in the team, a small community who I had the privilege of being a part of for such a short, much too short a period of time.

In memory of them, and as a way of having them with me, my gift to Lanie and Jacques is a framed photograph of the engagement party that we had after she announced that the journey had begun. You can see it there below :-) Doesn't she look cute? Not to mention happy! Don't we all :-D?

My grandmother said: about regret, and forgetting, and living in the moment

Some years ago, I found myself in that unusual space: letting go and moving on.
This is not an easy thing to do, we all know that!

On the spur of the moment, I took a bit of a holiday and went down towards Plettenberg Bay, kind of sorting my head out. And I thought about letting go, and moving on, and all the while I was spending quite a bit of time looking back.
Something my grandmother had said to me many many years ago came back, as these things often do.

Here is what she said.
"You only regret what you remember."

At the time I thought, "That's so easy!" If you forget there will be no regrets.
But I soon discovered this is not the case. It's not possible to completely wipe out the past, and the memories keep flooding back.
So I went back to her, and I said to her, this doesn't make sense to me. She gave me that odd look that older women give when they are feeling wise, and said "There is no place for the past in this exact moment. Right now, in this moment. If you are putting everything you have into this moment, then there will be no need to forget, and there will be no room for regret either. The past will simply be what led up to now, and of course you would not have now without it."
But one forgets these lessons, until one day it all comes flooding back.

So I drove up to Storms River, which I had been avoiding, and I spent some time there assimilating the past while taking in the moment; and you know, I have never felt so alive.

And I have never again had to live with regret.
And best of all, my memories stay intact.

My grandmother said: Sorry? Three steps: the Mouth, Hands and Head

I'm Sorry - but am I really? Three steps to genuine forgiveness.

The Mouth, the Hands, the Head

We all learn it when we are very young: "I'm sorry Mommy!" "I'm sorry Daddy!"
And if you aren't saying saying it, then someone is saying to you "Say you're sorry now!"

What does it mean, all this saying sorry?
It's a sorry state of affairs that we don't look at the kernel of being sorry: Really, we want to be forgiven for something we did.  How to get forgiveness?. That's the crux of the matter.

Here's my Grandmother's take on it

After the umpteenth time of saying sorry (for the same old thing of course!) she took us kids aside and said:
"Look at me"!
"To be really sorry, you must remember the Mouth" (pointed to her lips) "the Hands" (clapping them lightly in front of her) "and the Head" (tapping her temples quickly). She then proceeded to explain:

The Mouth

The first thing you have to do to show that you are sorry for what you did is to say it out loud. Tell the person. As soon as possible. Its best to do it face to face, that works best of all because the other person  sees it, but sometimes it's not possible, so you send a message. And if you have left other people with the wrong impression with what you did, then they have to hear it too.

The Hands

Its not enough to say sorry.
We all know the phrase "Lip Service". Don't pay Lip Service:
Something is broken, its got to be fixed.
The hands are a symbol for that.
Spilled some coffee? Say sorry - and clean up the mess. Properly.
Spread some gossip? Say sorry - and now go to the people who you told the story to and tell them the truth. And say sorry to them for creating that bad impression.
Broken something? Say sorry - and fix it, or replace it, doing your level best to replace it with the same one.

The Head

But that's still not enough.
Why, you could be breaking someones cups, telling lies, using their stuff without permission and so on over and over again - would saying sorry work? Of course not. they would pretty soon get tired of it all.
No, the only way to show that you are truly sorry is to not do it any more.
In other words, you have to change your behaviour, and sometimes, even how you think.

So that's it.
You show that you are truly sorry by not doing it any more, and by talking and behaving in a different, better way.

And I remember it all by those three quick little motions she made, as she touched her lips, clapped her hands, and tapped the side of her head all the while repeating the Mantra "the mouth, the hands, the head"

The path to true Forgiveness is a 3 step process: and if you follow it, everyone will know that you are truly Sorry.

...

Arising: beyond body, belief, and into the meaning of it all

My Grandmother and knowing yourself, reaching towards your soul

Stephen Hawkins has plonked himself firmly on the side of Physics in the battle between pro- and anti- God Factions.
Of course, he assumes the constituent parts for Universes to evolve exist, so that knackers his argument too, as it begs the question where do those constituents parts spontaneously erupt from (his answer is nothing coming and going to nothing)? ... it's a circular argument that supports every opinion.
And, since it's a fight no-one can win, let's digress away from that and reflect on the steps that spiritual people might go through to become able to rise above the arguments.

When someone says to me "I don't believe in mourning" or "I don't believe in wasting my time pining over a relationship" I look askance and I look askancer. Because what I am really hearing is that this person is not mourning, or pining. Their feelings were never that deep about the missing person/object/pet/whatever in the first place. Belief has nothing to do with it; turns out their feelings were just plain shallow to begin with. Otherwise they would have to go through a period of mourning or pining or whatever. In the same way, atheists just don't need that communal religious thing, their religion is atheism. Go figure.

My Grandmother, who had a thing or two to say about a thing or two, was once put in the awkward situation of explaining life's progress towards God: a sort of phasing of the soul, as it were. Explain that to the under 8's. So this is what she said (as best I remember - although I paraphrase and use my own words … obviously …)

There are three stages to the liberation of the Soul.
The body, the idea, the spirit ~ that's pretty much as I understood it.

The Body 
We are born, she said, with what we are born.
So far so easy: If you believe that you have a Soul, then it is contained within your body, and what you've got is what you've got (despite the best efforts of Change Artists, be they stylists or surgeons!).
For example. If you have a bad temper, it's there, isn't going away. No amount of "get rid of your temper" is going to help. "Control your temper" now that'll work ~ if you keep trying sooner or later it will come under control. The message is: Learn to cope with your body, it's the base animal encapsulating you, and until you learn to master it, it masters you.

The terrible tragedy of Abusive/abused people is that their abusive/accepting natures have never been brought under control. They are both victims of their natures, and the villains too. (It seems that culture vs nature has plumped down on the nature side, which would have been satisfying for her had she lived. "In the blood" is more correctly phrased "in the DNA …")
Back to the point. Our Parents, Teachers, Friends, Society, and the rest *should* be helping us to learn the vital art of Coping with our bodies: their physical state, their natures and temperaments.

Until we have mastered our bodies, the animal natures will dominate.
When (and only when) we have mastered that, we are ready to tackle our …

Our Beliefs 
We are immersed in a myriad of interlocking belief systems: the backdrop to our lives and cultures. As a small sub-section include Religion, Nationality, Race, Gender, Language, Local custom, etc. etc. etc.
Where do we learn, take on these beliefs?

From wherever we were born to wherever we travel, of course.
They stream in early: Parents, extended Family, Teachers … in fact the same crowd who teach us to control our animal natures use these belief systems to be the agents of control. Since it worked the first time round, we naturally assume this is good too.
Here's a generalization: Most people accept beliefs blindly and are contained within them for most or all of their lives. What does it mean if you never challenge your beliefs? Necessarily, you remain in blind obedience of them. Maybe that's because it's the safest position to be in, vis-à-vis the communities you must interact with and survive in.
If you never challenge your beliefs, then you are the servant of them.
It seems to be a perfectly natural thing to challenge them. From late teenage to mid 20's, all of us, to a greater or lesser degree "rebel" against authority. To the degree that society lets us, to the degree that our upbringing supports it, to the degree that the spark in our breasts demands it, we challenge.
By the time we reach our early 30's most people are patterned into, have accepted the basic truth of, their belief systems.
For most, this is a lazy acceptance of the status quo.
For the rest, the journey can result in a radical change in belief systems.
And it can happen more than once too.
For those who have never contained their baser natures, the combination of a powerful animal nature and unchallenged beliefs is a monster that behaves outside reason. Sorry for them, sorrier for those under their sway …

So here's the important thing:  

• The best we can do about our animal natures is to learn to cope with them;
• We have the power to take on or let go the beliefs taught to us: they can be challenged, modified, discarded, assumed…

Once we have done that, we are ready to approach …

The Spirit, the Soul, the Meaning of Life 
In whatever way you would like to express it.
If there are Eternal Truths, if there is a God, it/they certainly do not need anyone to stand up for it/them. By definition, being omnipotent, it is beyond existence and time, is what was before the physics of Universes became possible.
So here we stand at a threshold. For those who truly believe, their belief systems are utterly immune from challenge. To be utterly immune from challenge requires a good deal of thought and introspection, and will only happen after the side tracking body has been dealt with, and the beliefs imposed accepted and rejected with conviction.
This is that point at which one can truly approach one's place beyond the Universe (which, after all, lives and dies and rebirths like anything else we know).
To approach God, whatever that might be, we must rise above the physical animal that is our container, the self serving beliefs that govern us, into a space where the mind and body is accepted and accepting of the search.
Wisdom, Spirituality, the meaning of it all, my old grandmother implied, will only be for those who have mastered their bodies, stripped and examined their beliefs, and are then ready to move forward into those Eternal Truths.
And for those who will come with, come with.
And those who do not, well their pain and fear will be a constant threat.
Its hard work, consumes that spark of life, and in ,most parts of the world - dangerous, to go beyond.

So, Back to Stephen Hawkins!

It’s not a new position for him, but it is a rather silly one – having no religion he is better off with pure Physics.

Truly spiritual people aren't concerned with the nature of the Universe, with whether a button initiated it, even whether it exists.

They are concerned with whether the infinitesimally small spark of life contained within themselves has a purpose, and having assumed that is the case, with how to fulfill it. And that is a far, far cry from evolution debates, after all.

In fact, got nothing to do with it …

 ______________________________
The images are from the Goddard Space Station:
© http://dayton.hq.nasa.gov/copyright.html
Top image: Image # PR00-07: Hubble Reopens Eye on the Universe
Bottom image: Image # : PR00-14 Galactic Silhouettes 

My Grandmother Said ... About Heaven and Hell, and souls as light as a feather

Grandparents are good with analogies
They have a way of explaining stuff - life, the universe and everything stuff - in a way that sticks with you for most of your life. Maybe its because they have had so many experiences, and also learned from others, and they have picked up the art of telling stories too, so these things together make it really easy to paint a picture that just makes sense.

So there we were, little people of 5, or 6, or 7, just back from Sunday School, and we are asking that age old question: "What happens when you die, Granny, how will we get to Heaven? Is it scary?"

So she tells us that Hell is like a big tall building with a fire escape on the side, and doors to go into each of the levels. Only, the building goes down into the ground, not up into the sky. And right at the bottom of the bottomest part, there is the door into the WORST part of hell, and as you go up the stairs to the next levels each level is a bit milder until you are as close to Heaven as a sinner can be, without quite getting there,

Got that picture in your mind?

Good.

Stairs all the way from the bottom to the top, and if you start at the bottom, why you can walk all the way to the top and go into any of the Chambers on the way up.

Only that would be rather silly, don't you think?

You'd want to just carry on going up, and go straight to Heaven, That would make MUCH more sense.

When you die, you find yourself down there in the depths of Hell, right at the bottom of the deepest pit.

Looking up, you can see the steps stretching all the way to the top, and the Shining Light of Heaven is there, clearly visible and waiting for you.

"Your body is heavy, but your Soul is as light as a feather" - that's what my Grandmother said.

And when a little baby or an innocent child dies, well, it doesn't have to do any climbing at all.

The heavy body is left behind, and that soul it just floats up and up and up all the way to the top like a feather on a breeze and before you know it the soul is safe in Heaven, no problem.

Now, what about the rest of us?

Well, when you are born, God gives you an invisible bucket.

It's quite light, and very strong.

Every time that you do something wrong, or tell a lie, or worse, God puts a pebble into your bucket.

Sometimes its a big stone, for really bad things (like stealing someones lunch at school, or being a bully) or maybe just a grain of sand for a really small thing, like stealing your sister's cookie when she wasn't looking... and another one for blaming Mr nobody for doing it. REALLY bad things - well you could end up with a whole lot of ROCKS in your bucket!

What happens if your bucket gets full. Well IF your bucket gets full, why then God is quite happy to give you another one. And another, and another, like that until one day you die and guess what?

You find yourself down there at the bottom of that bottomless pit, with nothing but a a staircase, the distant light of heaven, and all those buckets of sand and stone and rocks. Maybe even some BOULDERS if you have done some really HORRIBLE things. Lets not go there.

Here's what you have to do.

You have to carry those buckets, each and every one of them, from the bottom all the way to the top.

From Landing to Landing, past door after after door, you must make your way to the top.

"What happens if you grow tired, Granny, and the buckets are too heavy, and you just can't go another step further?"

Ahh Children, that's the thing.

You see, you have found your place of judgement, and you must go through the door on that landing, and go into the Hell that you have made for yourself, and wait and hope for Gods mercy on the day of Judgement.

"and is there any way to empty the buckets before you die?"

Well that's the cool thing about God.

For every act of Kindness, 

for every Good Deed,

For every time that you truly seek forgiveness (and stop doing that thing again!) -

For every one of those,

God takes out a whole handful of sand and stones and Rocks and pebbles.

And you must never forget, she said, that the suffering of the poor and the downtrodden is the greater because it seems never ending ~ so the handful is bigger there than elsewhere.

So the lesson is this - you can lighten the load easily - simply by being kind, seeking forgiveness, and doing the right thing always:

Because while bodies are heavy, souls are as light as a feather, and all you have to do to get Heaven is to keep your buckets empty, and then, well you will just float up as easy as can be.

Images of staircase by nouQraz and feather by Caro's Lines via Flickr