Midwinter Thoughts
December is a bad month for me to start things. There is a collective tension this time of year with all the family activities and end of year work stuff and god knows what. It may not be that for you. But I have observed over the past few years that everything in me is against beginning things in December. Perhaps I am in tune with the waining light. In fact now that I think on it further, I am happier not starting things in the entire forth quarter of the year but in December it is a deep unhappiness to begin.
If we have beginnings then we have ends too. I don’t want to end things either but in midwinter that is more acceptable than starting. Really, it is hard to accept that we are, and everything we do is, temporary. We feel that we will be this way forever, whatever “this way” means. That perhaps there is a point where all the changes will stop and we will be frozen there, either in heaven or hell or the in between. The evidence we see is against this and yet we have a very hard time functioning without implicitly believing we will go on some how. Either by reincarnation or some other means. Living with the expectation of ongoing change is wiser than attempting to fix our state into some weird ice sculpture of bliss because it keeps us from clinging to imaginary states that are not in the present moment. Change keeps us alive and dynamic.
At the same time I really want to go back the the safest times I can remember or imagine I remember because wow—shit’s though out here.
Then the word duality comes up in my brain. This life is finite, this state is a definite thing with an end. But something about it does continue which defies material knowledge and I don’t even know what that is. I can never know that now. I might know it when now no longer is a thing. When my state is out side of time. Duality is not helpful after the age of ten. But we really liked how certain and possible things seemed at ten so we hit that loop again. And that is how we get stuck in intractable conflicts!
My mind is churning and that is uncomfortable.
Speaking of intractable conflicts, I have observed how homeless humans use the public library. It is one of the few indoor spaces where they can hang out relatively undisturbed. They mainly charge their cell phones and take naps. But a few times we have had to stop them from brewing tea in the stacks and they do ask if we can microwave things for them. This got me thinking. What if, what if there were a place they could go that was all about those little things. A sort of internet cafe for the down and out. Where there was a little break room set up with microwave and toaster oven, some coffee and tea station and outlets where they could charge their devices. It would be staffed by social workers who could direct them to services when they are ready to try for the housed life. This project could be a public service but it could also work as a religious ministry. (Provided it wasn’t all command and control about the spiritual stuff. Because if it dose get that way people will resent it and that’s not going to go anywhere good.) Doing a thing like setting up an internet cafe for homeless humans requires change though and I don’t feel the calling to do this still I think this idea should circulate.
