I came around a corner in a Catholic cathedral in San Francisco to find a portrait of Martin Luther King Jr. in a gallery of saints. The Baptist minister. In a Catholic cathedral.
Earlier, I had been impressed by the stained glass window of the cosmos, a scientifically realistic depiction of spinning galaxies. There was something about finding Martin there. Out of place (to my understanding of organized religion, at least) and yet wonderfully welcome like that. It struck me with a particular force. I liked feeling that my assumptions had been wrong, and that the world was a better place than I knew.
When I find myself before a work of art sometimes I am struck like this. I cry when confronted with many of Van Gogh’s paintings, and a few of Picasso’s. Not out of appreciation for the beauty or technical skill, but because I feel confronted with some fundamental connection. Not between myself and the artist, but between everything. I am not sure if people are really designed to spend alot of time aware of things outside ourselves, but in those moments I can become more aware of myself by feeling the opposite. The walls of self flicker a bit. The sense of losing myself seems to magnify the perception of self when it returns. What seemed so mundane, my little cares like so many blobs of ink, suddenly seem like temporary miracles. I feel suffused with almost unbearable gratitude.
There was a wide basin filled with golden sand beneath his portrait, and a stack of long, very thin tapers. Two candles that were already burning had been placed in the sand and, feeling like an interloper and wondering about the etiquette of a suitable donation, I hesitantly lit one and placed it in the sand. And then, feeling ashamed of not knowing how to do that properly, I looked at his portrait for just a moment more and then left. I didn’t want to stand there and force myself to feel the transcendence when I had so clumsily landed back in the mundane. That would have cheapened it.
It is with similar hesitance that I lay a burning offering at this, my alter of over-thinking things. I sometimes worry about worrying too much. It’s a bit late for that now, isn’t it? I overthink things. I am a scientist, by nature. I have come to accept this. Maybe. For years I felt I was very good at science, but that perhaps I was a kind of interloper. That I did science with my intellect, but I wasn’t really a scientist in spirit. I am still ambivalent here that my assumptions had been wrong. I am scientist to my core. Perhaps inescapably so. I sometimes quietly despair of what I see as dry, brittle, fussy, or overly detail-oriented characteristics of some of my friends. The ones who must plan. The ones who worry, while the sun sets, that the park gate will be locked. Or let themselves be embroiled in petty disputes, let contempt into their heart and those they hold in contempt beneath their skin. The ones who pick at their diet and exercise regimen like pursed-lips coroners and share their insights as I slather butter on my toast. And then I pick at flesh and blood beings whom I love and cherish with such vigor and ridiculous determination!
Who knew what I really was seeking was an outlet for my mania for control! I mean, that’s my JOB. I control everything. For a living. I create (as much as possible) a perfectly controlled environment, and then manipulate stuff in such incredibly precise ways that inventions are required just to measure that stuff.
A few years ago I decided I had enough control at work, and I needed to chill the heck out in the rest of my life. Some tangible measures of my success in this (irony, yes) would include driving across the country in a very recently resurrected old car, moving to a town where I knew no one and arriving with nowhere to stay. I’m OK with the big gestures. It’s the details that get me. Because I often refuse to exert control, there are fewer details now, but when you are over-thinking the heck out of everything, details have a way of appearing. And I’m learning to do this. More to the point, I’m trying to figure out how to ask for what I want while at the same time making no demands. That would be great. I’m not so great at it. And I know this but have no idea how to do it. And I guess I’ll just learn by making mistakes. There are jagged points beneath the soft, curved exterior. You hold someone close, and suddenly it matters. And there are moments when I have no idea what to do.
And I have to just admit that today, I don’t know. It’s ironic it has taken me so long to be even remotely comfortable with this, because as a scientist “I don’t know” is a talisman against hubris. Usually, I like feeling that my assumptions have been wrong, and that the world is a better place than I knew. Today, I’m going to settle for I don’t know.
Smoosh - Waiting for Something 3.6 MB
0 Responses to “Due process”