Mindful Living: Questions and the Endless Enigma

One year when I was stumbling through being 10, we, meaning my teachers, my parents, and I, discovered that I didn't have those darn multiplication tables down. In one grand effort, we bought the flash cards, practiced diligently for days, weeks even, and somehow I managed to memorize the bunch.

What I liked about being a kid was that when you had a problem, it generally could be solved by somebody. Whether it was no sense for math or the need for a new spring kite, someone knew what to do to fix things. I'm not saying there were no complex problems in my childhood, because even then I knew that there wasn't anyone in the house with whom I could share my fear of my brother, or my addiction to food, or my sense of helplessness about my own life. But generally, my problems were solvable with a little concentration, a bit of commitment, or a few bucks.

Twenty years later, the problems of math and kites still come up, and they are pretty much just as easily solved. Easier maybe. I thought as I grew older, I would continue to grow spiritually and emotionally, so that one day I would reach a sort of nirvana. I figured I'd know how to handle stuff at some point, existing on a plane of Gandhi-like beneficence. So, maybe that hasn't happened, and maybe the whole idea was silly. But I will say this. At 37, I've seen and heard and dealt with most garden-variety problems. Having once coped with those things, I know they can't fell me - which might be the biggest knowing of all. The crux of the difference between 21 and 37 is not a job or a car or a house, but having been through so many experiences that I can handle just about anything. Just about.

What fells me now are the really tough questions, the ones I thought I'd have down by now. And the worst part is that there isn't anyone around who can fix them. Today when I woke again after two weeks of the flu, my questions are these. How do I let go of a hurt so deep that just thinking of it makes me curl in on myself? How do I take a scary step, know that it is my calling, but even so, pretty darn crazy? How do I forgive someone for stealing the deepest love I ever had, even when what he stole was himself?

When I'm laid up with Kleenexes and cough drops, a million questions roil and boil in my head. I keep a pad by the bed, and write down the solutions to all the easy ones: buy kielbasa; read that new Chris Rogers mystery; vacuum the hallway by the kitty litter. But the mixed-up ones usually end up here in my columns, left out on the line for the crows to peck and the springtime breeze to fluff and freshen. When I ask these questions to the universe, there's only one answer that floats into my mind and my heart - that maybe there isn't an answer, and may never be. This is so hard for a practical person like me, but it seems to be true. I pray to the universe, to God, to whatever power is there for me - but the "answers" to those questions never come - at least not in a list form. The answers I do get are something like this: I am on my right path even now, even when it seems like I will never find myself whole again. I may never understand why things are the way they are, and it may be that no one can. There is not always a Reason for things happening, but that they do. God is with me and protecting me, even when I feel overwhelmed with grief and fear.

Every person I know is still searching for their own path through the maze. Sometimes they have ideas and suggestions and thoughts on things, but the bottom line is that no one, I mean no one, has The Answer. This is scary enough, but there's also something deeper than that bottom line. There may be no "answers" but I do have myself, and I do have God. I know I am cared for and that I am doing what I need to do. If I can't have simple answers, then I will accept love without answers.

Copyright April, 2001

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