Soulful Muse

The least but always first question

It’s the perfect question to answer with no further questions needed.  It is the one that needs no defense nor can it be argued or dismissed. Full proof or fool proof?  It is totally of our own making which makes it solely lacking (or soul lacking?).  A sole question from the one asking the question that has no answer.  What could this question be?  It’s only three letters followed by the sentence that your circumstance created and now needs an explanation.  It is “Why?”

“Ohhhh, I love it.  Now we can happily ramble on with countless and unsubstantiated statements that support and attempt to answer our “Why” question.  There is no defense for our “Why” answers if asked “Why” by others because we’ve provided all the information that they need to piece our “Why” explanation together.  It was because of “this or that” (fill in the blanks) that completes our sunny yet sordid explanation.

And the strange part is that we accept our explanations with no further thought or reflection.  If we have good and hearty friends then they will see through our shallow “Why” and probe a little deeper until they hit a dead end because we are so convinced of our “Why” explanation.  We blind ourselves to our “Why” and seem surprised that good folks surrounding us just don’t seem to buy it.

A good news reporter will ask the five questions that we all know.  Guess where “why” is?  That’s right.  Number 5.  The least answerable.  “Law and Order” lasted this long on television because the “Who” is always first with the “Why” unraveling in the last two minutes.

But in our personal lives it is usually the “Why”  that comes first and conveniently stays there because we find it so difficult to answer the first “W,” “Who.”  “Who are you?”  Occupation is the first response followed by who your parents are until you’re out of breath and out of filler words.  The bottom lines finally bottoms out and you’re let with the simplest and most complicated question someone could ever ask you, “Who are you?”

A common path is to identify ourselves in relation to others.  We respond to the question thinking of how others perceive or how we think they perceive us.  Tricky stuff because both observations may be entirely wrong.

“Who are you? In one sentence.”

The “Why” can never be unfolded and understood until the “Who” is revealed.

“Alone or by yourself?”

The worst night of week.  After a week’s worth of work I deserve a night off and out.  Didn’t happen.  Many Friday nights, I was convinced that everyone in the world was having more fun that I presently was having.

Is there a difference between being “alone” and “by yourself?”  Yes.  If you’re alone than other people  are not with you; however to be by yourself means that you are content.  How old must you be to stop waiting for the phone to ring or the letter to arrive?  “Being alone” (how many sad, sappy songs are written about this stage?)  “By yourself?”  Not one song that I can think of.  Why?  Because we love to project ourselves into crowds, no matter our personality.

There’s an admonition that no one should die alone.  I wonder how someone cannot but die alone.  If everyone in the room with the dying person should die; I suspect the room would quietly but quickly empty.  How can you not die alone?  We die alone.  Holding someone’s hand doesn’t count although it makes the future bereaved feel better.   As an appendage, the hand naturally loses feeling as death draws near, so holding hands looks good if you’re Bette Midler in “Beaches” but does not really count in real life.

We don’t teach self-contentment to our children.  They play so well as children and then suddenly are thrust into groups and remain there.  (I wonder if it can even be taught but rather only learned through years of living.)

To be “alone” sounds terrible and should happen to no one.  To be “by yourself” is a trained treat and a gift that hopefully the years bring.

Where the Church lives and breathes

Who comprises this varied group of people that the Catholic Church calls the “laity.”  I’ve never cared for that name because it sounds so ordinary, “the laity.”  “The laity” believes that…

We hear so often in sound bites that, “the American people believe that…”  I think that they are talking about someone else because I often don’t agree with what’s been said.  So, who is this vague group of people that gather in the pews on Sundays or those who claim to be Catholic but sleep in every Sunday morning?

The laity is:
A.) Those waiting for the next papal encyclical to add to the list of encyclicals that they haven’t read?
B.)  Those patiently waiting for the sermon to end so they can get to the good part, getting communion?
C.) Those who get goose bumps ever time the word “pope” is mentioned?
D.) Those “sheepish” people Jesus talked about who are whisked away with a good feeling; compliant and faithful followers?
E.)  Those who “hook, line and sinker” the Church’s every word?
F.) Those who are a discriminating, thoughtful, discerning, sensitive, cultivated, aesthetic and introspective group of people?

When I get up there on a Sunday to lead “the laity” in prayer,” I am thinking, hoping and looking at the “F” group.