We’re navigating the cosmos on a world being shown the abyss, the possible change of anthropomorphic destiny. Now that’s a fancy word salad. Spiritual guidance seems out of reach of those causing the most trouble.
What exactly is Spirit? We know it’s the force of life, the animation of mind. Accessing the best parts of our mind should always lead us in the direction of compassion, listening and love.
Of course, we know that the world is subsumed by other forces and the battle is eternal. The sight that Christ restored was metaphorical. Healing the blind only meant revealing their own real power to change their lives. When the blind lead, the abyss is always around the corner. At present, the light vs. dark struggle is at its peak.
Meanwhile, our surrogates John and Mary Farquar are befuddled by the wildfires in the West and the Congress in Washington while Jeff Bezos, Richard Branson and Elon Musk take joy rides into lower space for a 10-minute experience of weightlessness. They’re looking beyond the Earth for the key that brings them historical relevance. Mankind must explore, go beyond the confines of Mother Earth, like Christopher Columbus and Vasco de Gama.
Historical romanticism obscures the reality that the Earth is getting too hot and a bunch of numbskulls are clogging up the works. Our attention is diverted to the egotistical rather than the common cause, the recognition that we’re burning up for a reason.
Space tourism is a capitalistic enterprise, not the Universalist cause that inspired our initial flights into space. Are our space tourists paying upwards of $2 to $300,000 to be educated, or to be clipped for elitist adventurism? After all, the problem is Earth. Space doesn’t have any problems except groups of adventurists who might eventually bring the same problems they’re unable to solve on Earth out to new locations. We need to warn the Universe that Earthlings are potentially very dangerous. They can’t resolve the climate issues they’ve created, though the knowledge and technology is ready and waiting.
Many of the most “intelligent” creatures are also the most dangerous. But we all know that. Nothing revelatory there. Should we bring our culture out into the Universe that already knows far more than we, if laws of physics hold true, which of course we know they are. In the novel I’ve written, space company pioneer Jeff wants to cart bigwigs up into space to take part in a classroom, ambushed with study of what’s below, not above. It’s not a glory ride. In fact, he’d like some regular people to be part of it, people who could never afford it but are most open to what it signifies. That keeps the paying guests honest. Let them moan and groan. Wake up!
Of course, we all want action on climate change and not have so steep a grade to go up. But we went from an Appalachian terrain to an Everest to climb in a 40-year span. And then the pandemic! God really doesn’t love us. So difficult to reconcile our beliefs and habits to just unite and dig ourselves out. There’s no choices to be made, no personal predilections worth coveting. The other guy cannot do the work and advocacy that we need to contribute. Let bewilderment die its paralyzing grasp.
John and Mary went out west to Colorado to visit their kids and families in beautiful Summit County ringed by magnificent mountains. Day two slurred into skies tinted gray from western fires. The scent was light but ever-present. The distant mountains showed a haze that obscured their majesty. But life was going on.
Tourists did what tourists do, John and Mary included. In a week’s visit you have to blot out the peripheral and concentrate on the familial. Their young grandchildren were ever so dependent on us to provide some facsimile of what we enjoyed. But the cost is going up. John and Mary looked at each other as the plane lifted off. This is huge.
So down in the rough and tumble world of contradicting perceptions of reality, our paths have been all laid out for us. As the weather goes, so go the unwary, missing the turns and the templates that connect us to ourselves. But we are proud. There will always be another turn from which swerve we imagine we’ve conquered the unknown and thus deserve salvation. All the time we decide who lives, who dies, who gets the last word.
Alan Harris, formerly of Noble Feast Catering, lives with wife Jane in Shelburne Falls and works on publishing his first novel, “The Preposterous Tale of Dan and Lee.”