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A Natural Grace
Androscoggin River, Brunswick-Topsham, Maine
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As a little boy, I was taught faith in God. Sometimes, I would think, "Where does God come from?" I remember a specific night, looking into the night sky, sitting in the back seat of our family car. I looked into the sky and asked inwardly, "Where did God come from?" I never asked anyone the question. I kept it to myself like a secret too intimate to speak of.
This was a spiritual practice - though I did not know it - in pushing the mind to the point of imploding on itself. I could find no explanation for why God is, yet, I was content not-knowing. Of course, I had no idea where the stars in that sky came from, what they were made of, or how many light years in the past I was seeing, and that was okay, too. Regardless, they were lovely. And I enjoyed looking at them.
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A psychoanalyst urged his client to go to the hills. The man was never at ease with himself, anyone else, or any place. He complained a lot and asked way too many questions.
The man went into the hills camping. A few days later, a telegram arrived for his psychoanalyst. It read, "I'm very pleased being here. It's so wonderful! Why?"
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Wanting to understand, we step away from an experience. Yet, experience is before "Why?" Life manifests as experience, so experience is a step away from life itself. Explanation is a further move from life itself.
The root of "explain" is "to make flat." Life is not flat. Life moves all over the place. Explanation is an extraction, a distortion, of what is and happens. When we give a reason and meaning to any experience, we subtract from it, we dilute it.
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The Way leads us to nurture contentment with what is - and when possible, delight - not needing to ask, "Why?" Curiosity is okay. Confusion is okay. Life itself is wonderful.
The fruit of not being attached to needing to know "Why?" is intimacy with life itself. Can you relax, step back into trying to flatten out life, and be intimate with life itself? - experience is an opening, an invitation, to do this.
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*©Brian K. Wilcox, 2023
*Use of photography is allowed accompanied by credit given to Brian K. Wilcox and title and place of photograph.
*Brian's book, An Ache for Union: Poems on Oneness with God through Love, can be ordered through major online booksellers or the publisher AuthorHouse.
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