We Live

'Q: Why are we here?

A: To know, love, and serve God in this lifetime and be happy with him in the next.'

--Baltimore Catechism ( memorized by thousands of Roman Catholic boys and girls in the mid-20th century)

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'Life is what you make it. Always has been. Always will be.'

--Grandma Moses' saying

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'A single life

Is such a short time

To right a wrong beginning.'

--handwritten poem on a scrap of paper found in a book of poetry given me by my daughter several years ago.

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We live. 

I'd like to examine the time 'between the forceps and the stone', the time we spend on this earth. 

What is the point of life?

Is there a universal goal we strive for in the time we're given?

Why do I do the things I do? 

I'm having a lot of trouble getting started on this section. Too many trails to follow. Woods too rough and dark. Life. I don't know. We are born, we procreate, we eat other life, we get eaten. It's all a bit too much for me. I don't want to simplify and I don't want to overcomplicate--but I also don't want to miss the prize. 

I think what bothers me most about life is the eating of other life-forms. Watch a herd of cows or a solitary horse. Drop into a popular lunch spot any day of the week. We spend a lot of time and cash eating other life forms.

 Visit a butcher shop or fish store. By all means visit a slaughter house or spend 3 weeks on a commercial fishing trawler. One student brought in a DVD documentary about the US meat business. We had to turn it off before everyone started vomiting. Melville said it straight: "It's a cannibal universe". So, at the most basic level life is all about eating other life. But, let's climb that ladder a bit. 

What I like about life is the ability to experience--to witness the world. The good, the bad and the ugly. I think of myself as a witness. I see, touch, taste, hear, and smell all the things that I come in contact with. The more I witness the better my journey will be. Again, it's not about beautiful vs ugly, it's about the act of witnessing. Maybe because I can then shape the experience into a story to tell. I have some stories to tell.