At the beginning of
The world you want to know
what
God said what words
God spoke to
Call humans into being
The Boss says God said Snails
Make shells humans make
hells
And winked and there you were.
poem by Shane McCrae
“humans make hells”; Shane Mcrae sums up a truth that time and time again has been shown to be one side of our legacy. Hell on earth. His poetic verse is easy to connect with the hellish images seared in my consciousness during my lifetime. The Kennedy Assassination in 1963. Vivid (still) is the President’s blood alive in color on his wife’s dress as she held his slumping body, dead. The Space Shuttle Explosion in 1986. A yellow and white smoked explosion horrifically shattering the pallet of that noon blue sky. Cut to the terrified shock disbelieving look on the faces of Christa McAuliffe’s family and her New Hampshire students witnessing the last obliterated moment of her and her fellow astronauts’ lives. Two images that are seared, branded on my consciousness. So many more assassinations, Dr. King, Bobby to name two. Add the images of mass gun shootings. The victims, many of our country’s children in shock, alive but traumatized as if each one was privy to the nightmares and terror of Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan. Of course there are those 9/11 images of civilian jets relentlessly flying into the two World Trade Towers, another jet moving low and fast, knifing into the Pentagon. The field in Pennsylvania a recipient of an unscheduled furrowing by the plane driven into the ground by those brave souls who hijacked the jet from the terrorists to make sure their hellish mission failed.
Recently, the image of the father emigrating from El Salvador to the border of our country with his two-year old daughter wrapped in his tee shirt-face down on the bank of the Rio Grande. As their trip unfolded across the river and with her mother watching, the water swept them away as if the Angel of God, Azrael, took them from their hell on our border to their heaven at that moment. Valeria’s arm comforting in her final embrace of her father Oscar Ramirez. Yes poet Shane McCrae, “humans make hells”. For Oscar and Valeria I only hope and pray that T.S. Eliot is correct when he writes in Four Quarters, ” ‘In my end is my beginning,’ he said shrugging”.
We go back in history before my current walk and see of course more hellish images. The Holocaust Victims- never to be forgotten, Hiroshima, Nagasaki, D-Day, World Wars, the Civil War, Slavery and on and on and on; horrific images living in our universal memories.
Are all my images horrible? Of course not. There is the images of each of my children being born. That moment when their first breath is taken with their first cry of “I am here!”. Their mothers’ look of unconditional love washing over her face replacing the excruciating sweat and pain of labor’s final push. So many snapshots of fatherhood, hand in hand with mine as we rediscover awe such as seeing a bushy squirrel for their first time. The image forever in my “minds eye” of my wife’s beautiful hand in mine as she accepts the ring of our wedding vows. The image of my grandchild’s first letter written in her young hand professing her love to her Pop. Images to be made of their first worm held before the fish tugs and tips their poles. Other heavenly images too personal to share here.
Real images both hellish and heavenly created by us here on earth.
While I lean against my lighthouse today and ponder all these images, there is one image I have a hard time seeing. An image of God. My God images are blurry and look a lot like George Burns, no Morgan Freeman I’m sure. No not so sure. My late mother told me God was a baseball player who always took his cap off in her house. Many friends told me God is a woman. I’ve lived long enough to never argue with them over that image.
Seriously an image of Faith never looks the same in afternoon light as it looked in morning’s light. Why is that? Maybe the Sun is really God’s eye and the Moon the other. Faith then the answer? For most yes. Why not add science? Can science help us find One’s image? The Great Principle of Primal Energy needs to be discussed here and stay tuned it will be reflected on soon.
Thank you for reading,
Mark