Spirit

Many years ago I was walking through dense woods and marshes with my very young son. We were on our way home from a camp on the shore of a remote small lake. We had been on a fishing trip. There was a trail, but we were a bit late starting and I suggested we try a short cut. After a few hours into our trek my son asked "Dad, do you know where we're going?" I told him I thought I did. A little while later, swatting mosquitos on his face, he asked again, more concerned: "Dad, if you know where we're going, how come we've passed this rock three times already?" He was getting worried. He knew that getting home was related to his dad knowing the way. He also knew that trusting his dad's confidence was related to this reappearing rock. If it was the same rock, his dad might not know we were perhaps lost. His destiny was embedded in relationships and he was keenly aware of that.

Relationships are everywhere. Flowers are related to (grow on) stems, stems are related to (grow from) roots, roots are related to (grow in) earth, earth is related to (is surrounded by) sky, sky is related to (gets light from) sun. We can shorten this: flowers are related to sun. And flowers have many more connections (relationships). They are related to bees, bees to honey, honey to sweetness, sweetness to craving. Flowers related to craving is not as immediately obvious as flowers related to sun. So at times we need to become aware of more in between links to appreciate a relationship, at other times we see it more directly. But relationships always reveal a widely spread network of links.

At about three years of age children become aware of these huge networks. They ask about a relationship (why do I have to go to bed now?) and the answer never satisfies (because you need your sleep—why do I need my sleep—on and on and on), because they have become aware that everything they are told always yields more questions. Nothing is sufficiently isolated to work as a final answer.

The ceaseless questions of a three year old are familiar to us and we don't question the validity of the endless chain of further questions. Scholars say that in some ways everything is related to everything else. That may not be directly obvious. It's a bit more difficult to grasp how a butterfly flapping its wings in Nigeria will in time affect weather patterns in Vancouver. Maybe that's just a metaphor for the complexity of the world's interrelationships? Scientists suggest it's not a metaphor but a genuine reality. Or if it is a metaphor, then it is shorthand for: everything whatsoever in the universe is somehow related to everything else, no matter when, no matter where, no matter how small, no matter how large.

These days the Internet helps us understand universal networks a bit better. In our human world someone can in very few steps relate to virtually all living  persons within minutes. If a globally important and significant event is understood to affect most of our lives negatively, we can publish the event on the Internet and have it picked up that very moment by media who spread the word directly to billions of people who can decide to address the issue. In our interrelated global community a tsunami or an earthquake in the Indian Ocean or in Haiti can result in aid beginning to flow within minutes, including contributions from private citizens who can readily find channels for their generosity. Instant access and global reach are available for virtually all of us.

For a moment I return to the flower. The flower that via the bee and its honey satisfies my craving needs time to come into my life with its soothing liquid. First the bud has to open, the sun has to stimulate a complex chemical process, the bee has to convert sugars to honey, beekeepers have to get honey on store shelves before I can taste the flower's gift to me. All relationships happen in time, over time, simultaneously, earlier, or later. Time holds the dizzying vastness of our universe of complex networks of connections together in one single universe.

Relations in time emerge as connections that begin somewhere and end somewhere. The honey started with the flower and ended up satisfying my craving. That's the only way we know how to relate things in time; there are beginnings and endings. The universe speaks to us of origins and destinies. Where did it all come from, where is it all going? If we came past this rock three times already, will we get home before dark?

There is a YouTube video of a man seeing a double rainbow who is totally overcome by the experience (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OQSNhk5ICTI). He says over and over again: A double rainbow, oh my God, oh my God. Later he wonders what it means. Who gave him this grand experience? What is he to do with it? He doesn't know. He laughs, he cries, it's too much. He feels addressed by the event, but he is unable to "hear" what is being "said" except by weeping. He knows this event is not isolated. He knows it is interrelated. And he realizes that we interpret this interrelation as the event's meaning.

As human beings we are aware that the universe as a network of interrelationships presents us with meaning and that meaning requires our interpretation. Often that's a simple matter. We hear the sound of a bell in our home and know that it means someone's at the door. We can also disagree about meaning. Some people interpreted the election of Barak Obama as the beginning of a new world while others saw it as the beginning of the end.

The meaning of events is not always clear. A child exploring a wall socket by probing it with a piece of metal is unaware of danger. When archeologist Klaus Schmidt began to explore Göbekli Tepe in Eastern Turkey he did not foresee that his finds could completely revolutionize what we know about the origins of human civilization (http://www.gobeklitepe.info/). And at some point we realize that the vast universe in all of its interconnections and relationships, with its origin and destiny, fades into mystery when we consider its meaning. We cannot oversee beginning and end. Like children, we will always follow up answers to our questions with more questions.

My son's questions on our walk home from fishing were not the innocent questions children learn to ask when they first become aware of the endless connections. He knew that our orientation and direction as we walked were connected to finding our way, to safety, to shelter, to food, to home. And this is where we all are on our sojourn. Where in the world are we going? Where did we come from? How do we orient ourselves? In what direction do we walk? Where do we find answers to these questions that, if not final answers, will at least allow us to feel at home in the universe?

Creatures whose existence in the universe depends on their interpretation of the mystery that surrounds the universe, creatures who need to know the meaning of that mystery for their orientation and who orient themselves between origin and destiny to what they have learned to trust as a way to walk that directs them to peace and joy, such creatures are spirits. Spirituality is the name we give to the quest for meaning in an interconnected universe shrouded in mystery. When we find the prehistoric remains of creatures who bury their dead we call those creatures human. They are like us. They knew that connections and relationships never end. The story goes on after death.

Whether creatures who are spirit survive after death, whether the real being that they are continues without body after the physical remains disintegrate, whether there is an abode for spirits, and many related questions make clear that the mystery continues. They are part of who we are as spirits. But no particular answer is more constitutive of our being spirit than just our being consciously, self-consciously and actively connected to these questions.

To be continued, the story goes on.

Patience

Wait all winter.
A new one will appear
this spring.
So much promise
so much eager anticipation.
Before the big revelation
a squirrel ate all buds
and spit them out
didn't like them.
Next year.
Wait all winter.