An Augustinian Life After Death for Me

I was talking to a friend about a half hour ago. She told me about the interview of a priest on EWTN (a Catholic Religious Network, 370 if you have DirecTV) discussing the nature of our eternal life. This priest, James T. O'Connor, teacher and former theologian at St. Joseph Seminary in Dunwoodie, New York and now a pastor in a parish in Medford, Massachusetts, favors the more realistic idea of life after death, the Augustinian view rather than that of Thomas Aquinas, a more beatific, "bald" as it was described. For this commentator/priest, our time in heaven will be active, and much like the best things of life on earth, with water, trees, sky, land, and animals, with God a consistent part of that eternity, and in a perfection not possible during this sinful life. It is (at least to our humanity limited minds) preferable, perhaps only because we have a frame of reference that we do not have for a more Thomist view, so absorbed in our participation with God that there is nothing else, a kind of quiet and perpetual absorption that shoud be enough indeed, but missing the interactions , seeming for me essential, with the ocean, the shimmering ocean or with others say, in the happy moment of a dinner with wine and conversation. My very preference of the Augustinian view seems incongruous for whatever heaven is, the closeness to God, however it is achieved, will be sufficient, and devoutly to be wished (pardon to Hamlet). But silly though it may seem, I want to see some people again. And if God with whom we are encouraged to have relationship wants us on earth to see Him in relationship with others, I like to think that the Augustinian view makes more sense., although we are assured that either way, we won't be bored.

Anyway, after I spoke with her, I looked on the net for this interview, and found a podcast, to which I am now listening; hence I have some ability to write a little of the above to explain the differences between the Thomist v. Augustinian views of resurrection of the body.

Sillier still, I want my cats, and my little beagle, given back to Bide A Wee, when my mother developed an allergy, to be there with us all. (Therein lies another debate, whether animals have souls and will be with us in heaven; that's my hope!). I went on line and just bought a book, out of print, by this priest, called "Land of the Living" so I can read more about his theory which gives me such immediate comfort. Perhaps it is because today I made my monthly hegira to Long Beach to get my hair dyed and cut and the weather was pristine as well as the water which glimmered and rippled in the sun and that always feels as close to heaven as anything possible on earth.

It's nice to think of heaven. It is getting close to dark, but there is still some warmth and light to garner. I am going to back to my backyard for a few moments on this Saturday in which I shall remain home to nurse an incipient cold, to watch the sun set and the hummingbirds swift by in preparation for their night.

The Ronald Reagan Presidential Library and Shambala Redux

Shambala Resident

Reagan Memorial Site

Air Force One

There are some ordinary experiences that are just so pleasing that you want to share them. Which brings me, at least temporarily, out of hiatus status.

Clearly, the Reagan Library and Shambala have nothing in common, except for the pure joy both locations provided to and for me.

I was backing out of my parking space at 6:58 on Friday morning, a not unusual time in and of itself, but for me to be doing anything other than rolling over in my bed, even on a workday. I signed up for a continuing education seminar some month or two ago, in part because while so many continuing education classes are lengthy, and boring, this particular group usually puts on a good one, where the professionals can take something new and useful away for future application. But another reason was where it was being held, the Reagan Library. A couple of years ago I visited the JFK Library in Boston, and it still remains one of the most gratifying locations and tours. A modern edifice right on Massachusetts Bay, the architecture uses light to a most effective degree, such that the inside feels liberating, and increases the sense of nostalgia and history in some way I cannot quite explain. I was curious about this West Coast Republican version not only because I admired and admire Ronald Reagan but because I was hoping for a similar experience, this time smack in the desert of Simi Valley.

The sun was just coming up as I traversed the highway on the still moist air morn. I am given to listening to the radio on car trips, but decided that the sound of my tires and the occasional bird as I watched the bubble like shadow of my car and the changing hills, some smooth, some rocky from the 170 to the 5 to the 118. How is it that I so easily reject this fresh time of the day in favor of sleep? What a fool? Or was I appreciating this cool early sunshine because I so seldom awaken early enough to consume it? The traffic was contstant but not oppressive, and I was at the Library just before 8 a.m. I got out of my car and walked toward the manicured front of the adobe building, typically Californian, so distinct from the East Coast style under which I was introduced to a Presidential Library. As I walked over a little "bridge" of sorts I noticed that the cool air was merging with the warmer air that would soon replace it, and a chime interspersed the greeting of the birds twittering as they darted from tree to tree. The mountains in the distance were all smooth light and darker crevices. I could see a bench overlooking a vista and wished I could stop and sit there rather than go to a room where I would be listening to a cacophany of expert lawyers for six hours-- what I must do before the 4 p.m. tour of this lovely place. Such courses are fairly expensive, even with discounts. I was there. Ethics is my trade, so I dutifully followed the signs. Fortunately, the room turned out to have large windows, several of which were covered to allow for projection if necessary, but still enough of them to allow a relaxed gaze toward the mountains when the need arose, without loss of attention.

The course was all right. I am at an age now, where, while I certainly learn new things to better do my craft, the urgency just is no longer there, or is it the idealism? It matters not. Nothing seemed more perfect than being there, and learning was a good price.

The seats outside the actually well stocked cafeteria overlooked a second vista, and I sat with two colleagues in the umbrella'd shade wishing a lunch hour would not go quite so quickly. The still summer Valley breeze brushed us as we returned to our legal edification, but 4 p.m. was not far off. I noticed the tail of the F-14 on the grounds from my seat. I could not wait to take a look at a real Air Force One, which I knew was a long corridor away, the 707 that was in actual use from 1973 to 2001, as I would later hear. The Library closes at 5 and one of the presenters was about five minutes into the 4 o'clock hour as certainly he was permitted to do as a sitting Judge, but I was eager to bolt.

I did not get to savor as I would have liked, the story of this particular President, as I had when I was in Boston and it was JFK whose history I was exploring. Enough for a taste that will bring me back, perhaps one day soon, for a leisurely stroll in a history I remember well, for I was a young adult during it.

I suspect that I pictured an Air Force One of the 1990's movie with Harrison Ford (was it 1990's?), far larger than ANY plane could possibly be, full of wood and ornament. I have never seen the cockpit of a commercial style jet and seeing the volume of instrumentation was astounding. Happy that this plane, housed in a huge, windowed hanger where one side was entirely squared glass, was not going to take off I had no need for my usual fears about flying. It was, a plane, albeit one that had special sections cordoned off and cultivated with furniture of sorts, more than any plane that I have ever flown in provides, but still as with any plane, a bit claustrophobic. Yet, I'd look at a picture on the wall and the space, like the one where Mr. Reagan or any President during that period had his desk, and a kind of cot that opened out (with seat belts to be placed across the shoulder, the chest and the legs (if you were lying down, as on a gurney), for the President and in the next "room", for the First Lady. Somehow I couldn't imagine Mrs. Reagan taking a long trip and sleeping on such a cot. But she did. And there she was sitting on the closed "couch" in the photo, as I looked at the actual space today, years and years later. There were tables, plastic as in any plane, but significantly larger. A conference room with a big chair, with seatbelts. The one that the President sat in on the way, say to Berlin before the wall came down in 1989. There was something about this walk through history, cramped and small, but massive in the waves of the past.

So many glass cabinets to look at, videos, but i had one other thing to see before the 5 o'clock closing, the memorial site where the President is buried. I remembered still the day of his service, five years ago, nearly, isn't it? The view which the President sees now for eternity, in a sense. There were only a few people there, part of a family, and a guide, a veteran from the Korean War. The marker with a parenthesis of a wall and a favorite quote. I would have liked to sit there, with him, this stranger, but not a stranger. Not today. Another time, Mr. President.

On the way back, the sun was behind me again, going down. I watched another shadow bubble of my car and considered a day well spent. The next day, I travelled much the same road, but this time the 170 to the 5 to the 14 and Acton, California, and a second visit to Shambala, the Preserve started by Tippi Hedren to house, care for and love big cats, Tigers, Lions, Servals, and a Liger, improperly traded and mistreated sometimes, by people who foolishly buy them and keep them, or use them for things like small circuses. They cannot be released into the wild, so they live out their days there, protected. Saturday was an afternoon Membership Party, with raffles and sales of Big Cat related items, and a silent auction, and a buffet lunch amid the little lake and the long grass and the spacious enclosures of the friendly looking but insistently carnivorous residents. People say that Hedren is "not nice". For me, it is an irrelevancy, since I can appreciate what she has done for these creatures, including getting legislation passed that protects others of their kind, and I have no personal relationship to worry about. She is serving a purpose on this earth that many of us can properly envy. I hope I can one day join it, or one like it, when I take down my shingle. I left with contentment at the preservation of these animals, some nearly 20 years old, as well as my membership hat and tee, and some other parting gifts. I'll be back sooner than later. There is something to be said for a life less urban. And respites of the kind I experienced this Friday and Saturday, that like music itself, soothe the savage breast.

On Hiatus

Those of you born in the pre-digital age will be familiar with the test pattern from the early color television days. I have decided to take a hiatus from these pages for an undetermined period of time. It could be hours. It could be days. It could be a winter hibernation. It could be longer. No worries. I am taking time to reflect and perhaps to keep more my own counsel. Bleu, the cat, is meowing at me for a bit of a pet. Good night. Speak to you, anon.

To Tell the Truth

A short entry about an extensive subject. If I say that I am obsessed with the truth, I'd only be saying what is probably the case with lots of people, and most assuredly, the great thinkers, of which I am not one. I have a friend who says that she "always" tells the truth. Me, I go along with Dr. Gregory House, and the idea that "everybody lies". We have many times heard that it is better to tell a "white lie" in order to preserve someone's self-esteem rather than to burst the bubble by confirming a worst fear. "Do I look fat in this dress?" You know what your answer would be, right? Me, too. And has been to innumeralbe similar questions in my life. Here's another question to which the answer I suspect if more than half the time, a lie, "How are you doing?" "Fine" I say. Really? And if you're not, come one, no one really wants THAT answer.

I can only speak about my obsession, not anyone else's. And it has really disturbed me of late that I cannot tell the complete truth, if I want to live to the next day, or have any people to talk to. Of course, that raises another question, and I haven't got the energy, "What is the truth?" More and more I have this experience of two immediate levels, what I am saying, that is always cached and careful no matter how quickly I might speak, and what I am actually thinking, sometimes withholding, mostly because I don't want to start a fight or hear, the inevitable disagreeing response. And there is the what shall I call it, the "false presentation" of self (the false self is the well written term by the psychological and religious writing set). So last night, when a friend called, it was in the reaction and emoting part of the black hole I found myself in triggered by all sort of ordinary life events and he got the full rendition of it, though I had promised myself to keep silent. But again, he asked a question, something like, "What's happening?" and I started to make the untruthful response, all the more so had I said it, because the opposite was so excruciatingly true in my head, "nothing". But then I changed my mind. I told the truth. I went on and on like something was pouring out of a psychic jug. And I regretted it immediately. Keep your own counsel, even if by omission, you lie. It's better for everyone else. Then I went to see a movie, "The Invention of Lying", sometimes cute, several guffaws, but ultimately somewhat disappointing, the theme, a modern world in which no one had before lied gets lying introduced by one man in some split moment. It made me wonder whether really, these days, we have to reinvent the truth, because it is so illusive. Today, my cousin called and I said nothing of the events which had been plaguing me, talking about family and our elderly aunt. Well, I guess there was truth in there because I told her that I had never really liked this aunt, not ever. This makes it hard to be doing right by her but also because, frankly, I think the truth and my aunt have not had recent acquaintance, but as in all things, can't prove it. I went to Church and was "normal", none of the rage I felt the day before, now taking a nap within. But I knew I needed to have as little human commerce as possible, and so I spent the afternoon eating eggs at the Grove with a Mimosa, and then walking back here to do laundry and feel the first of a non-summer day, cool enough to turn off the fan that endlessly runs in my bedroom. Better to avoid talking rather than to trend toward that lie. I called a friend that I cancelled hanging with today with no explanation and left her a message explaining the dark mood and not wanting to inflict on her, thinking of course, that I already had, but you draw a line where you can. This is an appetizer kind of entry. Gives you a peek into what has been rattling around the brain, but makes me realize that I am out of my depth, at least tonight, in trying to address it. Perhaps a vow of silence would solve my truth problem. If I didn't speak, I couldn't lie. That'd work well at the job. My verbal job as a lawyer. Well, the ambien I just took to get me a full night sleep seems to be taking hold, and will shut down this line of thought, or any line of thought as that seems to be what largely keeps me awake. Thought upon thought. Not brilliant ones necessarily, but persistent ones. So I leave the issue of truth generally and mine, specifically to the night. So, be honest, what do you think of this entry? Will I want the truth. I do think perhaps I cannot handle it, as some guy said to another guy in that movie. Pretty sure in fact. Now, that's a truth.