Spirit Spark, Spirit Flame

"I believe that man will not merely endure. He will prevail. He is immortal, not because he alone among creatures has an inexhaustible voice, but because he has a soul, a spirit capable of compassion and sacrifice and endurance." - William Faulkner-

As usual, I have only the slightest sense of where I will go with this, although I knew that this week I'd be putting closure to my rumination's on my Bert story, trying to draw some meaning from the experience. As I may have mentioned in the past, I am poorly read in a classical sense - was actually an English minor, but one needn't actually read so much or well to achieve that dubious distinction. Anyway, as sleep was falling from my eyes after some really weird and off-topic end of night dreams, I began discussing As I Lay Dying with my wife as a source for today's discourse, not remembering its topic, authorship, etc. - only the title. She, who had in her youth tricked herself into doing a term paper on this brief tome, based solely on the fact that it was "a skinny book," assured me that if I want to close my Bert chapter on a bright tone, As I Lay Dying would not be an assist. Those of you who know, know. Those who haven't read Faulkner, please do find the time. Just start with The Reivers to fall in love with him, then go from there...

Leaving this week's memorial service for Bert, I thought, and perhaps stated aloud, that it was the most moving service for a Caucasian that I ever recall attending. I've been to several black funerals, and there is a spirit there that I've never really sensed in an Anglo or Hispanic event. Somehow, I think that the spirit of life is more comfortable making itself felt in Black churches than White, where I can safely say I've seldom felt much of anything despite some arduous efforts on my part.

I would say that there were at least 150 in attendance, of which I knew only a handful. And it was pointed out that this was true of many there - Bert having so enmeshed himself into so many lives and disparate groups, that the lament and celebration of his passing didn't only bring individuals together, but actual groups that under normal circumstances might never intersect. The most prevalent were the role-players from Scarborough Fair, a local medieval celebration in which Bert had long been an energetic participant. I'd never interacted with this lively crew, except the few that Bert introduced or invited to our brewery rendezvous location. And there were the pubsters, the cyclists, classmates. In his too short life, Bert never met a stranger, and I don't think much tolerated them. If you were going to take up space in his proximity, you were going to be part of the game...

I'm not going to ramble on about my friend Bert, or his memorial, or his untimely passing. I will express what joy it was to be at a memorial where the drinking of beer was prevalent (and more than a little shocking to the funeral home directors), and nary a single formal prayer was muttered; where singing and laughter easily outweighed the wailing and lament, although we of course had that too. It was at this moment in time that Bert's spirit was formally recognized and finally distributed among those of us who shared his life, and I think we were all a little shocked to realize the full extent of the gift he had given us. A crew of us gathered last evening for a final farewell, and now we'll spin off in our various directions, each of us taking a piece of Bert with us, with a few making a real effort to have that piece invigorate our own lives, and the lives of others we touch. But everyone that Bert touched will, intentionally or not, carry him with us and continue to have him influence our lives well beyond his point of departure. And that, my friends, is the moral of today's ditty which I will strive to make more concise than the last few...

Faulkner says in the quote above that Man has a soul, and that this is why he will persevere. Then he says Man has a spirit, and attempts to leave a reader the impression that the two are the same. I contend that they are not, believe that they are not, and expect I shall so believe to my grave. Following is my belief regarding the spirit and the soul, and it is only a belief, unprovable, as are all matters spiritual. My thoughts and feelings surrounding Bert's passing have only served to strengthen this sense. For those of you who choose to believe in the individual soul, resurrection, life everlasting, a communion of saints, cherubim and seraphim and such, please feel free...

As usual, we will begin with a disclaimer regarding my formal education. I've not read much of Plato, Aristotle or any of the Greeks, nor of Thomas Aquinas, de Chardin or other philosophers and theologians who have reached into the realms we will be lightly treading this week. I intend to, before I die, but haven't yet gotten around to it so my thoughts are not much informed by their thoughts or teachings. If a reader should see some parallel or conflict in my thinking and theirs, feel free to share, as this may help guide my future studies...

I believe that each individual is entrusted with his or her little piece of the Spirit of Life while still in the womb - not at the moment of conception, but at the moment of either self or other awareness. When a woman becomes aware of the stirring of life within her, and either thrills at the knowledge or shudders in fear, the spirit exists. Can we trace it to when the strip turns blue? That's getting a bit esoteric for me, but I would suggest not. I think, and this will be a recurring theme, that the new life must be actually felt, sensed, experienced, either by itself or others - not just intellectually recognized...

It has been fairly well established that, while still in utero, the fetus intakes information from the outside world. I would say that this intake might, but doesn't necessarily, constitute the growth of the fetus' spirit and perhaps a step in the transformation to human from living tissue. It is precisely this gray area that allows non-ideologues to rationally discuss the morality and ethics surrounding the abortion debate. I will say that these in utero experiences, when intentional - mothers reading to their unborn, music seeping into the formative experience and such, are most assuredly the mothers and the greater world's portions of spirit reaching inward and attempting to expand, and I can't help but see these at some point making a connection. One of the many great unknowables that permeate existence...

It is estimated that as many as fifty percent of human pregnancies result in miscarriage, many so early they are never recognized. Was a piece of the human spirit extinguished in these cases? I will argue vehemently not, as I don't believe the spirit is ever extinguished, nor ever solely contained within the individual. It is a shared thing, exists as a function and result of sharing in fact, and in many of these cases it may well have been shared with none of the parties being consciously aware of it. If the mother doesn't know she was pregnant, and the fetus doesn't know it exists, and the pregnancy terminates, whence the loss? A topic too complex to ruminate on today, but one worthy, perhaps, of pondering or of further discussion somewhere down the road...

At some point, we become aware, a point that always precedes our recognition that we are aware. When a newly born baby cries out upon its first exposure to light and crushingly loud sound and temperature differentials and new discomforts, its spirit is growing, as is the mother's when she is relieved of the pain of delivery, the weight of her physical burden, and feels the joy of that first welcome cry. When the child learns the comfort of nuzzling at the mother's breast, of being swaddled in a quiet room after exposure to the noisy and raucous outside world, of soothing music or sounds differing from those experienced in the womb, the spirit is growing. And so it continues...

So, does this early spiritual growth and learning differ markedly from that of other sentient beings? I would argue that it really doesn't. The earthworm, the fish, the kitten and calf, they all grow through generally the same process. If anything differentiates the growth of the spirit in humanity from that of other beings, it is living the human life - developing and appreciating the incredible capacity of the human mind, the ability to be self-aware, and the human experience overall. And the more intensely one lives life, experiences the world, enmeshes the self in the world and interacts with the world, both human and non-human, the greater grows the spirit. And then we come to the fun part...

My friend Bert lived a life of unparalleled intensity, a notion that was alluded to over and over during last week's and last night's memorials. I believe that, at least partly because of his ADD, each moment was in many ways more real to him than to those of us not so afflicted. Every conversation was, at the time he was having it,the most important conversation of his life. Every bike ride, scuba dive, pub crawl, role-playing antic, construction project, lover - almost like his first and only. To be around this remarkable man as he lived life more fully than most of us can imagine, was to be touched by an energy that was almost superhuman. And as I looked at photos of him on a collage friends and family had assembled, photos I'd not seen before, I could see that this intensity was not some late in life manifestation, but had a been a hallmark from childhood. I can comfortably say that, more than anyone else I can remember in my life, Bert embodied the maxim, Carpe Diem. Indeed, the day, the hour, the moment - have never been more firmly seized than when in his grasp. In AA we're told, "One day at a time," and "Live in the moment." Bert lived these lessons for me...

During the celebrations of Bert's life this week, I had an opportunity to meet his German father, and a brother I never knew he had. Both seemed to me to want desperately to be angry at Bert, as is the normal reaction when one we love takes his own life. And yet I sensed they could not, because it was so evident that the spirit of the enormous crowds of friends and lovers who coalesced to comfort family and each other, and to celebrate a life so fully lived, were the direct result of Bert's life and spirit. Most of us touch people and share our spirit through a lifetime of fourscore years and more. Bert's spirit flame burned so bright and intensely, that it consumed itself in barely half that time. Yet I would argue that, to the extent that intent and effect are factored into the analysis, his spirit is far greater for having touched so many in such a concentrated period of time. Because Bert's flame was hotter and brighter, and such a large portion of his circle of influence was younger and more vibrantly active than the average, it will spread farther faster and have more effect than that of the average liver of life. And how can any of us hold that against him?

My take away, then, is that, just as Socrates stated regarding an unexamined life, so too does the reverse apply: "An unlived life is not worth examining." Yup, just coined that one myself. Hah! I like it!

And of course, to circle back around, I have utmost confidence that I will never see Bert again, in any dimension or realm. His fragment of the spirit of life, first sparked into being in his mothers womb, was tended and stoked and fanned into a mighty flame that in the end consumed him too early, but not before it had touched me and warmed me more deeply than many of us have been or will be again, and been passed along to me, and to countless others, to spread and grow in small ways and large over many generations. Many of the great spirits of humanity are preserved and recognized through recorded feats, works of art and architecture and literature and music, execution of wars, development of religions and languages and philosophies and technologies. But here, a 45 year-old bi-polar ADD suffering dynamo of a man, publicly unremarked, made a much greater than average contribution to the human experience, one for which I am truly grateful, and one which I can only hope to match through my own living of this wonderful gift of life.

Amen.