Today

7.

It is all I’ve got. Today. The sum of all my yesterdays equals now. Every action, tossed together like a green salad, creates both the current reality of today and my future potential for tomorrow. I am what I’ve done, from the physical and material standpoint, but what happens when the inevitable decay begins? There is no escaping this fact. Things, body parts, primary instruments of movement and motion, will at some point on my physical fitness timeline, peak. Where they might plateau, flat-lined - not increasing or decreasing - until the day when metabolism and motivation start to slow. And continue to atrophy until breaths cease and the heart is silenced. 

This is not bad news. It is science and biology. Every sentient being on our miraculous and magical planet will face this reality. We come screaming into the world, adapt, grow, fight, dance, cry, love and learn. And then we die. Again this is not morbid, morose or maudlin. It is the way that it is. What IS bad news is this:

That we fail repeatedly to recognize the value of every single day. We disrespect eternity. We procrastinate thinking we have ‘all the time in the world’ when what we actually have is one drop in that infinite ocean of time. He considered the role that the spirit, man’s soul, played in this melodrama. According to several texts it is the soul that counts, not the physicality or mentality one brings to the dance. The body will decay and the brain cease to function. Blood will harden and electrical circuitry will fail. But the soul lives on. The soul is our connection to the universe and all its wonder and mystery. Why we discount and diminish this possibility is comically fascist. Moreover, he continued, we deathly fear what we do not understand. We put our faith in a God who only wants us to find the courage and awareness to realize our true nature. The body and the mind are only tools to help us build the platform of awareness high enough to see this. It is the soul that matters to eternity, not how fast or strong one is or how many of the great books one has read. 

This in mind, I look for the footing to keep my line. It is dark, an hour before sunrise, raining hard. I have made the drop and now march back to HQ. I hold a battery-powered LED flashlight in which-ever hand is best seen by oncoming vehicular traffic. Always a test, a mindful passage through time and space, I breathe with utilitarian efficiency as the grade steepens and the path twists. I notice the carved brown bear guarding a mailbox and the Christmas lights strung at fence-top looking like neon waves. I hear the wind pushing cedar boughs back and forth, into each other and away, sometimes a snap or the crack of limbs, like the conifers fist-bumping the evergreens. Hey bro.

The morning is about to begin over the glimmer of a rain-soaked asphalt back road. I am alive. I have meaning. I have purpose. I have what remains of my body and a deep curiosity about many things. My soul is aroused and I feel connectivity with the faun who just darted back into her corridor after spotting my light. 

I am troubled however over a few situations that I might have to play a small part in down the line. Part of the mystery, the ‘Keep your cover and continue your practice,’ directive, means to stay abreast of the social, political and humanitarian events of the day. This one instigated the morning’s meditation:

“When you fade into the shadows, you become part of the problem. This is not a matter of being tired, it’s a matter of justice. It’s about the truth. It’s about social responsibility. It’s about facing up to the fact that we live in dangerous times. The issue is not to get tired, the issue is to fight harder.” 

That is all I have today.