Look out your window. It doesn’t matter which one. They all will do. What do you see? Trees, hills, grass, concrete, metal bars, trash, crap, and all the other debris of modern life? No, you see something wonderful, something magical and wondrous. You probably don’t see it right now, but you will.
What you see is a gift. A gift more precious than anything, ANYTHING that has or ever will be imagined by human intelligence. You see our reason for existence, our life’s work and mission: to be a song of praise about life itself. Our grand and glorious purpose on earth: simply to be here, right here, right now.
The greatest lie, the greatest scam of our lives is that this world was created for us, for our pleasure and enjoyment, for our dominance. What stupid, arrogant animals we are. We were created for it. We are simply the audience. What would true art be without an audience? Only in this work, the artist painted us inside the canvas. We are art and audience all at the same time. We are part of the grandest work ever created, ever dreamed.
You know it is true. You’ve felt it in your heart, in your soul. It’s that little piece of you that gets caught up in the drama of life, the drama of nature, the drama of history. That feeling in the back of your throat that you are part of something that you can’t quite grasp and yet you know is there. That just makes you want to cry because it’s so big and bold and beautiful. That makes you want to scream out in joy and ecstasy, thanksgiving and praise for being a part of it.
In that moment, in that very moment, whether it lasts a second or a lifetime, you know that you have touched the face of the divine. Whatever name you want to call him or her or it, you have touched that face and you will never be the same. Nothing will ever be the same again. You may try to bury the image, pretend it doesn’t exist, but there it will be, forever and ever. Always lingering, always waiting, always hoping.
You can pay all you want, pray all you want, but you can’t make it go away, nor can you make it return. Only when you let down your guard and take it for free, only then will you find it again, feel it again.
All the rules that try to contain it and control it. All the rules and regulations to explain it and prove it. You know they don’t mean a damn thing. They never have and they never will. They can never encapsulate that which cannot be encapsulated. They can never define that which refuses to be defined. Do not be fooled; do not be misled. Do not let arrogance and fear be your excuse to run from the truth, to hide your eyes from the divine.
It is not our destiny to do so. We were created for so much more. There is more love in every atom, every molecule than in all the romances ever conceived. We are the song of life, of love, of a mother and father who made us by sheer force of will.
So much of life is a paradox, but it is there that we find God the most. It is there, in the confusion and the mess that we must dwell. It is there that we experience true beauty, true joy. It is there that we can see something wonderful, something that sends a chill down our spine, and puts a smile on our face and a laugh in our heart, where we know with certainty who and what we are and why we are here in this time and place.
It is in that moment that we are at peace.
This is my gift to you. This is my story. This is who I am. I am a messenger of peace, of the true peace.
May 1, 2003