Lately I’ve been kicking around the concepts of life/afterlife like I sometimes do. You know, the whole unending process of questioning that we are born into and revisit time and again throughout our lives. One religion, or sect, teaches the ‘heaven/hell’ (reward/damnation) lesson, one teaches the ‘re-incarnation’ (do-it-all-again) theory, another espouses the ‘spiritual ladder’ (earn your salvation) principle, another the ‘bliss/oblivion’ philosophy, still another the
‘I am god’ theology. There are more variations on life/afterlife than there are different kinds of hot peppers in Mexico. Some combine all of them into a kind of spiritual casserole in an attempt to make sense of it all, or to mollify ones self. I mixed 12 different kinds of chili peppers in a blender once, when I was living in Baja, in an attempt to make the ultimate salsa. It practically killed me. It reduced me to a fetal position on the floor of my kitchen, not unlike what religion has done to some of the people I know. Not very pretty.
Some don’t pay attention to the big questions about life, and purpose. The Why’s, the How’s, and the What ifs? Or at least they pretend not to. But most do try and figure things out on some level or another. The eternal questions. The ones we try to solve in order to determine how to live.
In dealing with concepts, whether they be new, or generally accepted, but unproven, I find myself falling back on the ‘old coat’ test. Does it feel comfortable? Does it have dignity? Does it feel worn, but not tired? And lastly, does it feel authentic? I think it’s a pretty good indicator of substance.
I keep returning to a very simple conclusion of purpose in my own life. A pretty solid reason for being. I’m ‘on assignment’. It helps me to look at life this way. Yeah, just that, I’m on assignment. From whom? From where? It doesn’t really matter. I don’t really need to qualify, or quantify it. It doesn’t need a name. It doesn’t need a face. Call it an acceptance of the unseen, the unproven, the unspoken, the unknown. Call it faith if you must call it something. Call it an internal knowing, or an eternal truth. I don’t care. Call it naïveté, or blasphemy even.
On assignment, representing the human race. . . . . . . . and the Divine.
What if each of us lived as a personal representative of both? And are we not? Who would want to be a poor representative of either? A concept so simple, yet so profound, as to go unconsidered by even the most intellectual among us.
On assignment.
I believe life would be meaningful for all if such were the case.
I believe it would be a peaceful, and a dignified planet.
