Author: Paul D. Snyder (page 2 of 6)

This is from May 19, 2008. 
I had no idea how much my life would change when I became a grandfather or how wonderful it would be. I remember my own mother telling me that grandchildren were the bonus in life and when our children were young I couldn’t conceive of the idea that one day they too would be parents. Well, time and human nature have a way of bringing the recurring reality of life home to each of us. As I write this our grandson Kaj is sleeping 10 feet away from me and in our bed. At first he would struggle over his daily nap, but now at18+ months we have developed a rhythm that makes it a little easier on both of us. First we go into his uncle’s old room which still contains some of the artifacts of an adolescent past. We tickle the gorilla on the shelf which then moves around and sings two verses of the Macarena, wave to the blue Elvis Presley clock on the wall, the one with Elvis’s legs swinging together as a pendulum, a souvenir of a trip to Graceland in Memphis. We play with uncle Sean’s five soccer trophies and one lacrosse trophy moving them from the windowsill to the floor and back again. We do that a couple of times before moving into Grandma and Grampa Don’s bedroom. “Gramma” and “Grampa” were too hard to pronounce so we have become “Ugglik and Don”
We sit on the bed and the realization of what’s happening results in a little fussing, though soon eased when the bucket of wood trains and a wood bulldozer emerge from grandma’s side of the bed.
After we play with them, we have a song, a story and a snuggle, the last of which results in a little more dispirited fussing and then off to sleep.
As I get to this point in writing, Kaj has been asleep for 45 minutes and shows no sign of awakening. I figure he’s good for at least an hour and a half. 
You can’t imagine the joy and fulfillment of being a grandparent unless you’re one yourself. And you can’t mention how you look forward to the hour or two when you’re own offspring’s offspring takes a nap. 

Sent from my iPhone

February, 2018 I was separated from my prostate ten days ago. I found something out about myself through that experience… I think… I hope. It was something that confirmed an experience I had ten or so years ago.   
The essence of both experiences is that I seem to be able to live in the moment with little anxiety about the future in terms of my own health situation. 
In the prostate experience I was able to rely on my “binary situational analysis” for life’s little or big health disasters: “Is it malignant? If it is is it treatable? If it’s treatable is it curable? If it’s not curable is it fatal? If it’s fatal, how soon?”
I’ve not gotten to the last stage of this analysis yet though the older I get the more likely it is to occur, absent my sudden and unanticipated demise. 
I was told in December or January that I had prostate cancer and made the decision to have my prostate removed. I had about three weeks to wait till February 9 for the surgery. Over that period I commented to my wife a number of times that I was concerned that I had no awareness of any concern or apprehension about the surgery. Come to think of it, I have been with both of my parents when they were going in for surgery and neither of them exhibited any anxiety. 
My father after he was told that his death was imminent, and the family gathered at his bedside to say goodbye regaled us all with stories of his youth, and finished with a request for a strawberry sundae. He was dead two days later. 
When the surgery was over I was also in pretty good shape, uncomfortable but not in pain. Again, I think that an open and accepting attitude makes a difference in how we respond to issues of health. 

Sent from my iPhone

We got “The Call” a little while ago. 
When you get to a certain age The Call becomes a more frequent though much dreaded occurrence. 
The phone rings:
“Hi… what’s wrong? You sound upset.”
“No! How did it happen?”
“Oh my God! I can’t believe it.”
“Where was she?”
“Oh my God… Oh my God!”
You’ve probably gotten The Call more than once, and you can be sure that you’ll be receiving more of them until someone makes The Call on your behalf at some point. 
I remember that time in my life… the first time I had ever received The Call from my grandmother about my uncle. 
“Hi Nora, how’s it going? You sound upset… what’s wrong?”
“Leo’s dead! Oh my God! Oh my God!” What happened?
“He tried to save the guy trapped in the truck and another beam fell and killed him? Oh my God! Oh my God!”
My uncle Leo was actually three years younger than me. I was in law school and he was working for a company that serviced construction vehicles. He was at the site of a new highway being built when one of the supporting beams fell and trapped the driver of a gasoline truck. Leo ran to help him and another beam fell killing him and setting the truck on fire. His was a closed casket wake and we only hoped, though there was no way of knowing, that he was dead when the truck erupted in flames. 
The Call, a few minutes ago, was from the daughter of a close friend of my wife’s, another school nurse; the two of them had worked together for the public health department, and had retired not that far apart. 
Patti and Joe, her husband, had gone to dinner about six months ago with Sheila and myself, and strangely enough Sheila had just been mentioning that we should call them to get together again. 
We never made the call to set that up and now, as of about an hour ago, we received The Call and will never ever be able to get together with the two of them. 
When you get to that certain age The Call becomes a regular part of your life until someone makes The Call upon your demise. 

July 3, 2010

We go through life experiencing various levels of cognitive spiritual awareness from the hum drum repetitiveness of our daily activities to th so-called “ah-ha” moment when some profound insight breaks upon us in a wave of awareness or the deeper insight of sharp pain, physical or emotional. 

So, we operate at these different levels of awareness, ranging from surface awareness to a much deeper, often more intense level and on occasion to a profound level of understanding that is cognitively, intellectually, emotionally or spiritually insightful. 

I’m sitting in the lobby of our local hospital waiting for my wife to come out from a routine mammogram. The stillness is broken by the announcement “Code red six west! Code red six west!” followed a few minutes later by the announcement: “Code green. Code green.”
Every hospital has its own method of announcing a cardiac arrest in some part of the hospital. For those of us in the waiting room, life is qualitatively and quantitatively different from the lives of the patient and medical staff on six west. We’re sitting killing time, reading the paper checking our cell phones, trying to quell boredom, yet in another part of the hospital rather than killing time, there is the urgency that time will kill one among us. 
With adrenaline pumping and with the professionalism borne of experience the subsequent “Code green’” coming shortly after the first code indicates that the medical team responding has been successful and the silent heart is now beating again. If the patient wasn’t responding to their intervention, they would still be working to restore a heartbeat and would not have given up in such a short time. 
We all live our “code green” lives, waiting for our own “code reds;” we should be sure to not take that situation for granted and to make the very most of all that is given to us during our “code green” phase of life. 

If you’re centered or grounded in your God then all of your actions and interactions will emanate from that point. 
The awareness of the God within us is central to a faith of meaning in contrast to a mechanical faith, one based on the acceptance of a series of allegations purported over the ages to be factual, a faith of rote belief, an unquestioning and unrealized acceptance of the faith of others. 
This force of creation which we Christians label as “God” is the object of worship for millions of people throughout the eons of that creation.  
We conceptualize and subsequently define this force in different ways and it’s those definitions as well as the way in which we worship this phenomenon that constitute the basis for a particular religion and which have been the basis for untold conflicts over time. 
We create word pictures in our own minds of what this entity… this “God” is and as time has passed those shared concepts have evolved or morphed into the various religions of which Christianity is one.  
Each religion has its own creation story and most have developed a collection of sacred writings over millennia that purport to set forth the tenets of that groups’ beliefs. These tend to be stories about or on behalf of this ostensible creator usually attributed to it by a person referred to as a “prophet”, one in in direct communication with the force of creation, charged with the task of relaying this “godhead’s” wishes to the masses of humanity who subscribe to whatever common belief the prophet represents. 
Beyond their writings or “scripture” most collective religions have “rituals” or peculiar actions shared and performed by the group, which are called “worship” and which are deemed by each group that performs them as satisfying to their creator. 
The group beliefs, embodied in scripture and the form of its rituals have been the basis for suuspicion, hostility, conflict and war between and among the various religious groups over the millennia. 
Many of these religious groups have historically defined other persons who practice other religions holding differing beliefs as infidels, apostates or non believers who must either be converted or subjugatedt because the group holds the only correct beliefs and performs its ritual in the only way that is appropriate and pleasing to the creator . 
The Christian God is a God of dual personality, a God of love, yet also, reflecting the vengeful gods of pre-christian times, a God of power and might ready to consign the souls of people to eternal damnation in the fires of Gehenna for eternity if they act against “him” during their lifetimes or who don’t worship in the only appropriate and correct way. 
Assuming the creation stories of all the religions have a common beginning and rely on a force that brought the world into existence for its pleasure or enjoyment, then doesn’t it seem likely that whatever beliefs or form of practice each group ascribed to would be secondary and of little importance to this God who they all share in common or more accurately to whom they all owe their existence and allegiance. 
Sunnies versus Shites, Christians versus Muslims or Huguenots versus Roman Catholics or any of the the other intra-Christian or other religious wars over time tend to make us question either the motivation of this “God force” or its power for good over evil. 
Does this force of creation view the objects of that creation as it’s personal playthings who give it pleasure as it manipulates them through the various conflicts and sufferings it inflicts upon them as men fight and die over the word pictures they’ve created in their own minds? Does it even possess the power to do that… the power to overcome Evil?
Or, does it merely act as a person would, while viewing an ant farm in a glass container, taking pleasure while watching, unknown to those being watched, as the creatures of that creation organize and order themselves in the various groupings reflecting their own perceived self interest?  
The difference between humans and ants is that we, in our unknowing and ignorance, pay homage to that unknown force of our own creation, all the while wreaking havoc on each other in “his” name?
Rather than being a motivator or intermediary between the various groups competing in its name, perhaps the God force is merely an observer to the various machinations and religious conflicts, albeit one without the power ascribed to it. 
As long as the various religions continue to demonize nonbelievers, the power or the motivation of this force of creation, this power often labeled as “God,” will be suspect, especially when conflict leads to violence in its name. 

What role does Jesus Christ play in this faith? Is Jesus “the finger pointing at the moon?” Or, is Jesus “one with the father” as we are “one with the father”, one with the god within us?
Meaning no disrespect to the Jesus story, but his being one with the father may be illustrative of our own relationship with the father, with the mysterious unknowable force within us that we call “God,” a god with a human face through Jesus, an unknowable unreachable God who manifests himself through the person of “his son” Jesus.
 Is Jesus divine of God as we are all the sons and daughters of that same God within us; the God of yet unrealized potential for humanity; the God who, if we are each centered in him, can bring the peace of “his kingdom” to our universe?
The Kabbalah speaks of “Ein Sof,” the life source (often described as the state of God before creation) that Christians would probably equate with the concept of the Holy Spirit. This would seem to be the life force within and among us, the breath of life, the God within us in communion with others who are also looking for their god. 
Many people find their god through the instrumentality of organized religion. To the extent that this nurtures the God within them; to the extent that it allows them to tap into this deep reservoir of spirituality, their faith would seem not in vain but rather a means, a vehicle, to reach their inner God, a method to develop a relationship with the same God who is the “Father,” the God of Jesus Christ.
Is the awareness of “God within me” an arrogance or an insight, a revelation or a self-delusion?  
To the extent that this concept, this awareness permeates my very existence and emanates from my deepest core, it gives meaning to my existence, an insight into my very being and the major purpose in my life. That purpose and insight are based on love and compassion, an awareness of the simple beauty and meaning of every creature and object in existence, an appreciation of each person, each object, each thought and feeling as well as a profound gratitude for my relationship with each of them. 
On a religious level we use words, prayers, petitions, descriptions, etc. to locate our God. But, we can’t truly find God by fumbling around with words. We cannot categorize God using the very limited boundaries of thought or language. We can only acknowledge the presence of, and our interaction with the God within us on a spiritual level, an awareness of this God, rather than a definition of god. 
This awareness, if we open ourselves to it, manifests itself in many ways as we make our way through the days of our lives constantly in gratitude and with compassion. The love of a parent for his or her child embodies and grows out of that reservoir of love and awareness and is perhaps the deepest manifestation of it. 
This experience of “God within us” is a concept referred to as mystical, that is: beyond understanding, incomprehensible; we are aware that it exists but we can’t define it or articulate it in words; we can’t grasp it, only experience it at a visceral level of our being. It is a phenomenon to be lived rather than one to be categorized and dissected through words and verbal constructs. 
We can experience this relationship, this awareness, but words are inadequate to explain it. It is, as it were, in a “little black box” within each of us, commonly referred to as the “soul,” unknowable except by its presence. 
Ours is a God of love and of mystery.  
 In the words of Adrian Van Kaam and Meister Eckhart respectively: “Life is a mystery to be lived rather than a puzzle to be solved.” and “If the only prayer you say is ‘Thank you’, that’s enough.” These say it all… The grounding of our faith… The God within us. 

“There are universal truths; insights arrived at by learned men and women; insights growing out of philosophy and theology that have no meaning beyond a final exam unless you and I discover them by and for ourselves.

One of these universal truths is that like everything else in life, life itself must come to an ending, nothing to be feared… only to be accepted.

By owning that reality… by accepting it as an immutable fact, we are fully alive to participate in what our lives bring in the present, finding at least a modicum of fulfillment and satisfaction in this awareness each day that we’re alive.

Beyond a modicum of fulfillment is the potential for a life of rich and deep satisfaction arising out of the total of those special instances… moments that define us… moments that give shape to our humanity… instances which  in the cumulative give meaning to our lives before mortality.

It is the noble, to a far greater extent than the mundane, moments that comprise this life of rich and deep satisfaction. 

And it is in this that we live in gratitude until like everything else in life, our lives come to an end.”

From 2015
Distraction has become much more sophisticated and endemic to the 21st century. It’s available every waking hour. Though, surely for most of us some distraction is necessary: for survival… activities of daily living; activities necessary to earn a living; relational activities – the necessary interaction with others either social for pleasure or associated with business, related to our survival. 
So… from what is it that we’re distracted? Just what is it that we’re distracted from?
From ourselves of course…. our own purpose in life and ultimately our own demise… the exit from our lives… or more accurately: the exit from my life for me and the exit from your life for you. 
It is certainly easier to become all engaged in the season of your favorite athletic team than to ponder the imponderables of life… the questions without answers… the painful questions for which there is no intellectual resolution. 
Much easier to get consumed by work, by identifying with a team or group or by joining a team or group. 
For me, my favorite distraction is my grandchildren. My wife and I spend a good deal of time with them. One of my other distractions is vegetable gardening. Of course the activities of daily living consume quite a bit of our time: bathing; making beds; cooking meals; shopping; cleaning; washing clothes… etc. And… the biggest distraction for me is the continual struggle with my clutter… the accumulated detritus of my lifetime. If there is any redeeming value to my indecisiveness about pitching my “stuff” it is the distraction it provides me from wondering about my purpose in life and my ultimate disposition. 
Perhaps… Just perhaps… The ultimate meaning to my quest is to move my clutter in a sysiphisian struggle… Like the ant, over and over I move the same stuff… Moving some here today and then relocating it tomorrow, skimming a little off here and there into the trash, only to be replaced after this week’s shopping, the mail carriers leavings as well as visits from the private carriers who deliver items purchased over the Internet. . 
My distractions… my life, systematic and all encompassing. 

From March, 2017

It was warm in Boston for a Monday in November. The heliotrope in the back yard were in bloom, confused by a series of days with the temperature in the upper fifties. In one sense the unseasonably warm weather was a gift because, as usual, he was late putting his garden away for the end of the season. He had also just finished breaking up a cement retaining wall beside the driveway, one which had started to crumble years ago. 
She left their house and headed to the blue Acura in front, rushing to get to the hospital in time. “That bastard blocked me in again” she said half to herself and half out loud. 
Working the car back and forth in the early morning fog inch by inch she finally managed to pull past the red pickup truck. Pulling abreast of her former captor, she groped into the backseat, feeling for any of the gardening or construction tools he might have left there. Fingering the cold stone chisel, she deftly raised it, the strong hands of a surgeon, wielding it like a scalpel she smashed it into the truck’s side view mirror, sending shards of glass spraying all over the street. 
Turning right onto Glencoe Street, she felt strangely fulfilled: “I’d like to see her face when she gets in that truck” she thought to herself. 
Lynne had left at 5:30, while he was still in bed, not totally asleep but in a groggy half sleep. He had told her that he loved her; asked if she’d like to go out for Chinese that evening; rolled over and mumbled something that sounded vaguely like “Have a good day.” 
The fog was rolling in as she drove up North Beacon Street heading toward Longwood Ave, the hospital district that treated the sick and injured from around New England and the world. 
Before she scrubbed she wanted to take another look at the chart. There was something in her that kept flashing, suggesting that this was not the routine surgery that all of the tests had pointed to. 
“Good morning Doctor.” 
The guard standing at the door to the staff parking lot looked more alert than any human had a right to be at this time of day. Of course, he’d be going off duty in about another hour after working the eleven to seven shift.
“Hi Frank… Busy night?”
“Not bad just the usual street surgery. They called Doctor Steele in to repair a torn esophagus, from a knife fight. The kid is still in Recovery and from what Sammy on the fourth floor desk told me it’s going to be touch and go for awhile.”
“Have a good day Frank. ” 
“Thanks; you too Doctor.”
Looking at the chipping and peeling light green institutional paint as she entered the hospital she was silently grateful that she’d not been on call last night. 
“Steele must be pissed having to come in at three in the morning” she thought. 
“Another kid whose life is probably ruined; a victim of being born at the wrong time in the wrong place and to the wrong parents. Steele is probably still here.”
She had to pee and went into the small bathroom off the physicians lounge, rushing past Doctor Steele who was sitting at one of the tables still in his scrubs over a cup of coffee smoking a cigarette. 
The cracked tile floor, the noisy exhaust fan in the bathroom and the grime around the sink reminded her of nothing so much as a bus station, a memory from her youth, a memory she didn’t nourish or encourage. 
Washing her hands and walking back into the lounge she approached the graying Doctor Steele, twenty five years her senior and looking like he had just come out of central casting for some medical movie. 
“Good morning Michael ” Then she saw the bleary unfocused bloodshot eyes that looked up at her. 
“For Christ’s sake Michael, you’re fucking shitfaced.”
“Yesh… Doctor… I am… I am somewhat incapacitated.”
“What happened to your patient, the esophagus?”
“Oh… another masterful intervention that may manage to keep the kid alive till someone is more successful in terminating his time on this earth.”
The Formica table in the lounge was on the verge of receiving yet another branding as Doctor Steele’s cigarette, resting precariously in the bean bag ashtray, was about to flip. Just before that could happen the older man snatched it up pinching it between his thumb and forefinger, flicked the long ash and raised it to his pursed lips to take one final drag before snuffing it out. 
Going on, Steele complained: “It’s one thing to get rousted out of bed at an ungodly hour to try to save the life of one of these young men who are intent on killing each other; it’s another thing to have to fight with the City of Boston to get paid for this privilege, ungrateful wretch that I am.”
“You complain too much Michael. Where’s the patient?”
“He’s still in recovery, fighting to make it. The cops want to talk with him but I told them no. This one detective though, he’s a persistent son of a bitch, pushing; pushing; pushing…”
Lynne turned out into the corridor walking along the heavily polished brown and cream colored floor tiles, worn in many places. She noticed this: “worn and beat up like Steele” she thought to herself; beat up old tiles… beat up old doc. Both had seen too much, been through too much and were now, both of them, well past their prime. Their days of glory long over, they were both waiting for someone to come along and throw them out; replace them with newer fresher… better successors. 
She thought of Jim and wondered if he were even out of bed yet. He was almost sound asleep when she was walking out the door. Living with a lawyer and thinking about getting married was pretty far from her mind just then, but he did, ever so slightly, and every so often creep into her consciousness. And, she usually smiled to herself when that happened, but not this time. 
Rounding the corner and heading toward the Recovery room, Lynne was accosted by a man in a blue pinstripe suit. He looked to be at the top of his game at this unlikely hour. “I wonder if he’s related to Frank the guard” she thought to herself. 
“Excuse me Miss… er… Doctor, I wonder if you could help me.” Saying this he pulled a black leather credentials case from his inner coat pocket, at the same time revealing the pistol he was wearing strapped into a shoulder holster. Opening the case he showed her his detective badge and removed a business card. Handing it to her he said: “Ma’m I’m Detective Walkowski from the first precinct. Could I have a few words with you?”
“I’m sorry Detective but I’m due in surgery in an hour and I’ve got to gown and scrub after I check on a very tough case in the recovery room.”
“I’ll only be a minute…”
“What is it you don’t understand about ‘no’ Detective?” 
As she said this she stepped around him and pressed the proximity card hanging on the lanyard around her neck against the wall mounted reader, opening the double doors to the recovery room. 
She knew he wouldn’t follow her in and he didn’t. 
“Good morning Mary.” 
“Hi Lynne; you’re looking chipper this morning.” 
“I’m on at 7:00. I had checked with Admitting and the patient is here just roaring to go. But before I scrub in I wanted to check on Steele’s overnight wonder.”
“Steele was tough. I heard from the OR nurses that when he eventually did show up he was so drunk that they had to pump him full of coffee before he could even get dressed. From what I understand, the senior resident did almost the whole thing… just pushed Steele out of the way.”
“How’s the patient doing?”
His O2 sat is low but starting to come up. He’s struggling but over the last twenty minutes or so he seems to have turned a corner, more in spite of your colleague rather than because of him.
What are they going to do with that guy? It’s just a matter of time till he kills someone. There’ve been more than a couple of anonymous letters to the Chairman of the board complaining about him but I’ve heard that the two of them are tight.”
As the nurse was talking, the intercom came on: “Doctor Standstill… Doctor Standstill report to Room 426 on Four West.” 
“Bye Lynne.”
Turning and running through the double doors, she almost knocked the police detective over. 
“Doctor… Doctor can I have a minute to talk with…”
Lynne never heard the rest of his sentence as she raced to Room 426 where someone’s heart had stopped beating. 
The crash cart was already there and one of the medical residents was attaching the paddles of the defibrillator to the patient’s chest. Lynne stood back. The dead man’s body jumped from the shock of the electric pulse. 
Lynn didn’t know the resident who was in charge of the situation. “I’m a surgeon Doctor if I can help.”
Ignoring her, the resident said “OK, let’s do it again. Everybody back!”
Again the dead man’sr body responded in unison by lifting off the bed board the nurses had slid under him to give him CPR which had been to no avail. 
The mood in the room was turning from professional to somber as the seconds kept ticking away and the patient’s chances of recovery were getting less and less. They were all standing there watching another young man dying before his time. 
There was a flurry as Steele broke through the crowd, a charged presence larger than life. 
“Gimme a scalpel!” he commanded one of the nurses and then proceeded to cut into the dying man’s chest. Then, cracking the man’s ribs, he grabbed his heart and started squeezing, manually pumping blood through his system.”
Nothing happened. Every so often Steele would stop and then resume again. The other actors in the room were in a state of frozen animation waiting, watching for some miracle, some slight chance to beat the power of death. 
He continued squeezing and pumping, long after standard medical training and practice would have told him to stop. 
They all continued to wait and watch, as a one, convinced of the futility of the situation. 
Then, having paused for the fifth time, there was a brief flutter of the heart muscle… than another… and another… Intermittent and weak, but operating on it’s own. Slowly… gradually… the beat got stronger… 
Color started to return to the formerly dead man’s face, replacing the ashen gray that moments before seemed to be riding with him to his grave. 
Steele hadn’t had time to put on gloves and his nicotine stained hands and the scrubs he was still wearing from his earlier operation were covered with blood. 
Turning to Lynne, who by this time had gowned and gloved, and in the same authoritative voice he said: “You close him up. I’ve got to sit down.”
Then turning he walked through the crowd of people who had, up to this very moment, held him in contempt. 
“Does anyone have a cigarette?”

I understand the importance of having a strong awareness, connection or relationship with the force that we label “God.” 
My own awareness of this Jesus fellow, the “Son of God,” though, is different, one of profound respect rather than the relationship of gratitude and humility I have towards this “Power of creation” … this “God.”
 I didn’t create myself so if I’m not just a random assemblage of atoms then I’m grateful to who or whatever did.  

Maybe we’re all just a part of some supergalactic high school kids science project; a human ant farm so to speak. 
But I digress. As I come ever closer to the termination of my time on earth, waiting for my name and maybe my picture to show up in the “Irish Sports Pages” of the Boston Globe, I wonder in retrospect just what my role in creation has been beyond passing my genetic material down through a couple of generations. I’ve tried to live my life in accord with what this Jesus fellow has laid out. 
I do tend to have some issues with the minutiae of our institutional religion… all religions for that matter. We have over the millennia, I submit, created many false gods and superstitions as part of our belief systems and rituals that have become (and some of which still remain) mainstays in the profession of the different faiths. 
Some clerics assume a superior, self anointed role in the institution of worship, positioned between their flock and the divine… divine facilitators perhaps… lobbyists to a higher power??

But all of these institutional trappings don’t really bother me. I don’t particularly do combat with them in my own mind; many of them I think are just silly and I ignore them.  

But… Jesus in relation to this force of creation… the son of God… similar perhaps to the way that we’re each sons and daughters of this power of creation??

We all have to sort this out in our own minds because spirituality is a very interior process for each of us in spite of or in conjunction with the teachings of our particular religion. 

 Before he was posthumously excommunicated Meister Eckhart said that if the only prayer you say is “Thank You!” that’s enough. 

I express my gratitude frequently during the day and beyond that it really doesn’t concern me whether the mother of Jesus was a virgin or if she was assumed body and soul into heaven. 

Many of the beliefs and rubrics of organized religions strike me as being superstitious, trying to set out a mechanical roadmap for “salvation,” whatever that is. 
I think that faith is more how you live your life than how many bible stories you firmly believe in. 

I sometimes wonder how we as a species have progressed so far in so many areas yet in terms of our religious concepts and practices we remain mired in the customs, beliefs and practices of a primitive society. As we have evolved, why is it that the spiritual aspects of our lives remain enmeshed in the primitive tribalism of these ancient cultures?

I don’t know if it is the emotional side of religion and religious beliefs that I have issues with; I really struggle very little with matters of doubt. Nor, am I inclined to implore the divinity for help nor to blame it when things don’t go my way. I do pray but more in the way of opening myself rather than through the recitation of formulaic prayers. 

I accept a lot of what life throws at me: the good, the bad; the joy and the pain that we each experience on our journeys; I’m grateful for the good and accepting of the bad with less exuberance for the former and less despair over the latter. 
As Father Adrian Van Kaam, a Catholic priest, has said: “Life is a mystery to be lived rather than a riddle to be solved.”

This is one of the touchstones of my religious faith and spiritual awareness as I wander through my life and await that day for my name to appear in the Boston Globe obits.