Better Than Dead

I know it’s not hip in some circles to believe in hell, and I don’t believe in the classic hell of Christian mythology, but I do believe that when we die, we are forced to go through a complete life review with no filters, no rationalizations, and face up to who we have truly been. Our sins, if you will.*

That in itself would be truly hellish, having to face up to things, to uncork all the muck of our shadow selves. We’re all in store for it, I believe, to a greater or lesser degree. Perhaps children are exempt since they have so little life to review. I read a book by a mystic/psychic** who said that was how he perceived of hell, and it really resonated with me. He also said that the worse our misdeeds the more darkness we face in the afterlife, and it was only as we came to terms with what we had done and who we had been, own up to it, that we were able to move closer to the light. Someone like Hitler, he said, would be alone in complete cold and darkness until he came to terms with what he had done.

He didn’t believe in eternal damnation, just damnation that lasted as long as we clung to our old worldview. I don’t believe in eternal damnation, either. I think the Universe is more nuanced than that, that the worst hell is the one we impose upon ourselves, here and hereafter. I know this won’t be popular with those who want everlasting retribution against people they hate but think about how awful it would be to be stuck in the cold and dark, screaming alone in a void until you acknowledge the wrong you’ve done. Far worse than fire in my opinion. The agony of that fire would give you little time to think on and acknowledge the wrong you have done. It makes no sense.

Of course, there ain’t no guarantee that the mystical side of the universe makes any sense, but I do take comfort from the notion.

I guess I do believe in karma, but definitely not the way the New Age defines it: if you do something heinous in one life you’ll be born into horrible circumstances in your next life. This is essentially victim-blaming, and I reject it utterly. The Eastern concept of karma is more nuanced (and if I’ve gotten what follows wrong, I’d be very happy if someone corrected me): if you do something heinous in one life, you have the opportunity to make amends and change your ways in the same life, but if you don’t you will be born over and over again into the same circumstances, living out the same patterns until you learn to break free of them. That’s somewhat more palatable, but it doesn’t have enough retribution for my liking. (So, I will probably have to mend my ways and get rid of my need for retribution along the line somewhere.)

All this is just my own eccentric take on things, borrowed here and there from various mystical and religious texts. My own personal gnosis, if you will. It may not be pagan enough for someone who calls herself a pagan, but there it is.

I’ve been trying to do some of that reconciliation work on this side of the divide, acknowledging my past misdeeds, stripping away as much rationalization and excuses as possible. You know, dealing with my shadow side here rather than there. It isn’t easy and it’s very uncomfortable sometimes but when I do accomplish it, it’s quite liberating. I feel myself inching microscopically closer to the light.

*What is sin? I don’t think it’s about having sex outside “permitted” channels, or self-identity, or sloth, or any of the other minor venalities of conventional hell and brimstone religions. To me, sin is about doing physical, mental, or emotional harm to fellow creatures and the planet.

**I want to say it was George Anderson’s Lessons from the Light but it was a long time ago and I can’t be sure. I downloaded a Kindle sample and read the start of the book and it seems like the one but, as I say, it was a long time ago.

Random quote of the day:

“Science emerged from the Copernican revolution as the winner, the new paradigm, to use Thomas Kuhn’s famous term. But science is wrong if it believes it is the last paradigm or the only one that deserves credence. The nature of new paradigms, as Kuhn wrote, is that they explain more than the previous paradigm.”

—Deepak Chopra, The Huffington Post, October 10, 2005

Disclaimer: The views expressed in this random quote of the day do not necessarily reflect the views of the poster, her immediate family, Lucy and Ethel, Justin Bieber, or the Kardashian Klan. They do, however, sometimes reflect the views of the Cottingley Fairies.

This morning on National Public Radio I was listening to Sherman Alexie discuss his troubled relationship with his mother and his new memoir, You Don’t Have to Say You Love Me. Memoirs, it seems to me, and Alexie affirmed, are for those who don’t get the chance to reconcile their complicated feelings towards parents and other loved ones. Oh yes, there are celebratory memoirs, to be sure, but when you come from a twisted root, it’s hard to write the sweet without delving into the sour.

The discussion triggered a lot of things for me. While I listened, I thanked God, thanked God, that for the last five years of my mother’s life, I was her caregiver. Those were difficult years, but… I got that sacred chance to reconcile my complicated feelings—and I think my mother did as well.

I used to call my mother the Dragon Lady with my friends who knew her well. She was hard-charging, always right, full of anger and unreconciled childhood crap of her own—but charming as hell, funny, creative, with an amazing life force, and a remarkable personality that drew people in and made them love her. Both sides were genuine, but she generally saved the Dragon Lady side for those she loved. People always told me I had the coolest mom. And I did. Except for when she was Dragon Lady.

I harbored so much anger and so much resentment for so many years. Therapy helped, but it didn’t leach the poison in me, just gave me mechanisms for coping with it.

In those last five years of Mom’s life, though, the roles were reversed. She was the child, I was the parent. At first, Dragon Lady was still there, fighting to retain her power, fighting to get the most out of life that she could in diminished circumstances. But even when she was most frustrating, she was so damned courageous. Always. For me, being a full-time caregiver, working full-time, and trying to find a way to get Mom to and from dialysis three times a week, I didn’t have the physical or emotional resources to carry my bad feelings forward. Gradually, I released them—or they released me.

And a wonderful thing happened. My mother began changing, too. The Dragon Lady never apologized for anything, ever; she said thank you rarely and never said “I love you” unless someone said it first. In her last years she became gentle, grateful, considerate in a way I’d never seen. She frequently told me “I love you, baby girl” without any prompting at all. And it became very easy to reply, “I love you, baby mom.” It wasn’t just that I didn’t have time for anger and resentment anymore—they really, truly went away. All that remained was love. For her, for me.

I won’t kid you. Those years were not easy. By the time my mom died I was stretched so thin I don’t know how much longer I could have gone on and not torn to shreds. But I really think my mother died in a state of grace, and that grace extended to me.

It nearly crushed me when she passed. But at least I had gotten that incomparable gift of reconciliation.

About a year after she died, I got the notion of writing a memoir, and worked in a fever for about a week. But it was impossible to write the sweet without the sour. I had purged myself of those hard feelings, and I didn’t miss them. They had poisoned my life for a long time and I really did not want them back. I let go of the memoir and held on to my state of grace and my reconciliation. I am so grateful for them. They are a rare and precious gift, mysterious as grace always is.

I love you, baby mom.