I was about six or seven when I joined AWANA. The goal of
AWANA was to memorize Bible verses for patches or badges that would be sewn on
a vest, girl-scout style. During an AWANA meeting one Wednesday night at the
Baptist church my family attended at the time, I read a verse from Revelation.
Before that moment, I had never been told that the Bible says the world is
going to end and Jesus is coming back. That verse terrified me. It shook my world.
I didn’t feel like I could ask my parents about it because, based on what I had
been taught about the Bible, I didn’t think I was supposed to or allowed to be
scared about something in it.
I think I was a little older when I first got really scared
about eternity. How does that feel like? I had been alive less than ten years,
so what was forever supposed to be? In either direction, what does it mean to
not end? In fact, what does it mean to not begin? I had seen things start and
finish. I could wrap my mind around finity,
but not infinity. (Side note, I just googled “opposite of infinity” to find the
right work to use there. Another mind-bender.)
A few months after I first started to drive, I remember
realizing all of a sudden that all these people in their separate cars were
each listening to something different on the radio and going and coming from different
places. It hit me how many people have existed and all had different thoughts
and perspectives. It also made me think of the conversations I would have with
my elementary school best friend about whether we all see colors the same. What
if what I have learned to mean red my whole life means red to you too but looks
blue in your world? How do I know for sure I’m seeing the exact same color
scheme as everyone else? We all experience the world so differently from our
vastly unique perspectives. So, really, what is reality, what is perspective,
what are we all doing?
I have struggled with, as Michael Gungor puts it, the
absurdity of my existence, for most of my life. While my fellow youth-groupers
listened in awe to talks about how infinitely big and small the universe is, or
how Heaven might be, or when the end times are coming, I would often have to
leave the room. Now, I frequently wake up in the middle of the night
remembering my consciousness and freaking out at the thought that I was without
it for a few hours. Where was I? I wasn’t gone, but I was gone. I still
existed, but without awareness of existence, what is existence?
The feeling I get thinking about all these questions is
almost like an internal buzzing or restlessness. Since I can’t describe it
well, I usually just call it freaking out. I don’t think it’s a full on anxiety
attack. It usually passes if I get up, walk around, take a few deep breaths and
try to think about something else. I force myself back down to my physicality
in the present moment. I exist now. That’s enough for now. If there comes a
time in the future when I don’t exist or am permanently unaware of my
existence, it won’t be scary because I won’t know it. It’s only scary now, but
I exist now.
I haven’t explained this to many people in the past, mostly because
I think it sounds silly. I also wonder sometimes if it even makes sense. I have
assumed, like most of us do with our secrets, that I was the only one ever
feeling this way or thinking these thoughts and freaking out alone.
But I’ve been listening to my new favorite pastime, a
podcast called You Made It Weird. Pete Holmes, a comedian, sits down with other
comedians as well as philosophers, scientists, musicians, authors, neurologists
and so far one football player, and basically just talks about the weirdness of
everything. Toward the end of each episode, the host and guest usually discuss
bigger, deeper, heavier, “weird-er” issues like relationships, existence, God,
the universe, religion, etc. And I have heard famous comedians, actors,
scientists, authors and philosophers discuss the same topics I’ve been afraid
to think about for most of my life.
Except the main difference is, they don’t sound as scared. I’m
sure, in their own dark houses late at night or while driving alone or
sometimes while looking up at the stars, their own freak out moments come and
they need their own mantras and breathing exercises to calm them down. But on
the podcast, there’s something different in their voices. They have a sense of
wonder. They even laugh at the absurdity instead of crumble under its weight.
“God is laughing because he gets the cosmic joke. That
everything in the universe is a paradox. Nothing makes sense. Why do we exist?
Why is there something instead of nothing? What does it all mean? Nothing,
actually, in the universe needs to exist. So why does it exist? How does this
universe come into this absurdity? How does nothing happen to become
everything?” –Deepak Chopra
“This exact interrelated web of people and events and places
and memories and desire and love that is your life haven’t ever existed in the
history of the universe. Welcome to a truly unique phenomenon. Welcome to the
most thrilling thing you will ever do. Welcome to your life.” –Rob Bell
“You live in a great, big, vast world that you’ve seen none
percent of. Even the inside of your mind is endless; it goes on forever, inwardly,
do you understand? The fact that you’re alive is amazing.” –Louis CK
“Mystery is not something that is unknowable. Mystery is
infinitely knowable.” –Richard Rohr
“There’s nothing in nothingness, and what are we doing here?
The big bang banged, and for some reason we’re here. And that’s astonishing.
And that we can even understand that is the most astonishing.” –Bill Nye
“The meaning of awe is to realize that life takes place
under wide horizons, horizons that range beyond the span of an individual life
or even the life of a nation, a generation, or an era. Awe enables us to
perceive in the world intimations of the divine, to sense in small things the
beginning of infinite significance, to sense the ultimate in the common and the
simple; to feel in the rush of the passing the stillness of the eternal.” –Abraham
Joshua Heschel
“Whatever it is that you find yourself in the midst of on
any given day – from laundry to meetings and traffic to going to class and
answering emails and driving kids around – I want you to learn to live like you’re
not missing a thing,, like your eyes are wide open, fully awake to the
miraculous nature of your own experience.” –Rob Bell
And I’ve begun to wonder what kind of difference that would
make to look at life with less worry and more wonder. To take today as all I
have, because it is, and not worry about the end but enrich and fully embrace the
present.
If someone left an anonymous, mysterious gift on my doorstep,
I would probably go crazy for a week or so trying to figure out who left it for
me so I could adequately thank them (and partly because the not knowing would
drive me a little crazy in and of itself). If it were a valuable gift, I might
also try to protect it and worry if it ever might be taken from me. But if I
were wise, I would do my best to focus on simply using and enjoying the gift
well. Someone must have left it for me for a reason, even if I never figure out
who or why. Someone must have had my joy, pleasure, good in mind. Someone must
have found joy in leaving me this gift, even if they didn’t leave enough
evidence for me to adequately thank them or pay them back. So the choice I have
as I see it is either to fret over how I got it and if I’ll lose it, or to simply
accept it as a precious gift, be thankful and enjoy that it was given and is
now mine.
