[MD] Fear of Death

[Dan Glover]

Hello everyone

Hey, John... first of all, thanks for the story. Myself, I don't
believe in God. I don't not-believe in God either, though. You see,
this "I" that I'm so free with, well, I can't find it, anywhere.
Believe me, I've looked on mountain tops and in temples. But there is
nothing here that I can call "I". I seem to shift and change no matter
how hard I try and pin me down. Still, I persist without existing; I
believe without believing. Interesting. A believer would perhaps say
its only God's image, would they not?

Seems like it'd be boring to be God, if there really is a God, don't
you think? You'd know everything before it happened. There'd be no
surprises, no anticipation. And you could do everything, go anywhere,
make anything, all at the same time. And go back and do it again if
you wanted. God would be saying to Himself, okay, I got all this stuff
going on, but ho, hum, isn't there anything really interesting
happening, anywhere? But no. God would know.

But, oh my God, do I fear death. Not my death. I don't exist. What do
I have to fear? It is nothing to die. A pause. No. I fear the death of
loved ones. I fear their loss. I fear their suffering. I don't believe
in God but each day I pray a simple prayer: grandfather dies, father
dies, child dies. This is the way. When the way is upset, great sorrow
arises.

I talk to God all the time even though I am not a believer and even
though I am quite convinced He doesn't exist any more than I do... I
ask Him as I plant them in the ground that my seeds be fertile and my
crop be bountiful. Sometimes, He obliges. Sometimes, He doesn't. When
I'm in a fix, I promise God if He were to see fit to lend me a hand up
that I'll be a better man. Some times, I am. Most times, though, I'm
not. I pray for sun and sometimes it rains.

Many of my real estate clients are God-fearing people. You'd be
surprised how many when first we meet ask me straight out what church
I attend. You might not be surprised that I lie. So what? I'm not
there to be their friend and confessor. I'm there to make a living. So
if my clients believe in God and go to church each Sunday, then by God
so do I. The hell with them, how would they know if I am who I say I
am? People like to do business with people they like. And people
always like people who are the same as them.

I am anti-theistic in that I don't like bullshit shoved down my
throat. Period. If someone wants to believe in fairy tales, I don't
care. Believe what you will. But don't peddle that trash on my street.
I'm going to tell you exactly what you can do with it, and I guarantee
you won't like it. You know what, though? I'm not going to cut off my
nose to spite my face. If there's value in it, I'll fall right down on
my knees and start hollering: Amen!

I think it was Platt who said if it were truly an idealistic world,
he'd like to be twice as rich. Not me. I'd stop the suffering of all
sentient beings. I'd just screw things up though. Without suffering,
there would be no evolution. No reason to be better. Well. I guess I'm
back to Platt's notion. I don't really need to be twice as rich as I
am now. But still, an extra five hundred bucks wouldn't hurt anything
though.





On Sun, Jul 11, 2010 at 1:08 PM, John Carl <ridgecoyote at gmail.com> wrote:
> Dan comments indeed:
>
> "We're, each and every one of us, dying men and women, and we're all
> afraid of that dark. We can't help it. We talk to God; it doesn't
> help; He never answers. Not that we can hear. We build monuments and
> they crumble. We write words and libraries burn."
>
>
> We erect towers of knowledge, label them Babel, and then get confused.
>
> The Greek form of the name is from the native Akkadian *Bāb-ilim*, which
> means "Gate of the god"
>
> The Hebrew version of the name of the city and the tower, *Babel*, is
> attributed in Gen. 11:9 to the verb *balal*, which means *to confuse or
> confound* in Hebrew.
>
> An interesting progression, doncha think?  From gateway to confusion.
>
> dmb once asked me why I choose to believe in God.  I gave him the short
> answer, "because He makes me laugh."  Herewith is the longer answer, as to
> why He makes me laugh.
>
> In my freshman year of high school, I experienced a very weird phenomena -
> popularity.
>
> It was just a brief interlude in my life, and hasn't been repeated since,
> but there it was.  For a while, I was popular.  I was popular with my
> teachers, I was popular with girls and I was popular with my friends.  I
> wasn't too popular with sophmore, junior and senior boys, because I was,
> after all, only a freshman.  But for me it was an astounding occurence.  And
> it all seemed to come about through factors outside of my control.  As if
> some force was guiding me, helping me and making me into something
> different.
>
> The thing about boarding school, is timing.  Right when you're entering
> puberty, you leave your home and community and established pattens and have
> the opportunity to re-create your self; to become a different person
> socially, at the same time your body is changing biologically.  I think its
> a fascinating process and ought to be studied by psychologists.
>
> For instance, every time I went home for a home leave or a vacation, when
> I'd come back to school I'd get a fluttery feeling in the pit of my
> stomache.  An excitement, a dread and a longing, all in one.  It was strange
> and I didn't understand it at the time.
>
> Years later I read a book on stage fright and ego-loss and it became more
> explicable to me, and when my teenage girls reported the same feelings, I
> had a ready explanation which fascinated them, and me.  That when they went
> to school, they took on new roles and personality and their deeper self knew
> in returning to school, the child-role had to die so that the
> self-sufficient student self could take over again.  Just like a really good
> actor gets stage fright before the curtain goes up on stage, and a really
> good teacher would get upsettedness to the point of vomiting before losing
> himself in his devotion to his students and a community building leader
> would be scared in facing another two-day seminar wherein the individuality
> of the self is subsumed into a wider and unknown social role.
>
>
> And yet tho we fear such little deaths, they are the birth of something much
> greater.
>
> But I had no idea of any of this my freshman year of academy.  I just
> discovered that out from under the pressures and expectations of my family
> dynamic, I was blossoming and blooming in ways I didn't expect.
>
> The first main happenstance that was prodding me, and a cause of much to
> come, was a close friendship with one of the leading couples at the school.
> John and Marge Eggers.  Marge was the school registrar and John was in
> charge of the work program and job placement.  Since that meant that I had
> allies in the two main aspects of the place - school and work, I had my
> bases covered.  John also taught construction and ran the construction crew,
> and Marge taught business english and typing.  Since to this day I've mainly
> gotten by on typing skills and building skills, you can see how important
> they were to my life.  Heck, even my brief foray into computer programming
> in my midlife had a lot to do with being a good typer.
>
> Also, my dad was named John and my mom was named Marge, so it was easy to
> project a familal feeling.  To top it off, their son was also named John.
> Tho he always went by "Johnny" and I, as I've mentioned before, always went
> by the nickname "Cary"
>
> I met Johny Eggers my 8th grade year at the parochial school in Santa Cruz,
> near where I lived, and where all the faculty sent their kids. Johnny was
> like me in that he was real smart, but unlike me in that he was very good,
> very moral and very studious.
>
> In fact, I was embarrassed once by our 8th grade teacher who announced that
> there were two students in class, who had identical near-genius IQ's, and
> one got straight A's and the other D's.
>
> He didn't have to be coy about it, everybody knew who he was talking about.
> Altho that was the first I'd ever heard that I had an IQ worthy of mention,
> so that was kinda weird.  But Johnny and I looked at each other with
> interest and we became good friends.
>
> If I had to pin down one big difference in our outlook, I'd pin it to our
> mother's attitudes.  His was the school registrar and mine was a hard
> partying ex-tomboy who loved horses, wine and going to the beach.  In fact,
> she'd stop by the school on the way and get me out of class saying "It's too
> nice of a day to go to school.  Keep me company at the beach."
>
> Which sort of explains how come I'm an unemployed framer, and Johnny is an
> OB/GYN in Washington State with a nice practice and a sailboat.
>
> Not that I'm complaining, mind.  I like my life and there were  times going
> through Med school when Johnny would contemplate all the work and sacrifice
> and wish he'd stuck to following his dad's contractor footsteps.  There's no
> good selfish reason for all that sacrifice.
>
> And my grandpa was an OB doctor, and let me tell you there's probably not a
> more intrusive and family-robbing profession in the world.  Babies don't
> care if its Christmas or Thanksgiving.  They come when the come.
>
> My freshman year, I got put on the lowly groundskeeping crew with all the
> other freshman,  until an opportunity to get a chance at helping paint some
> buildings came about and I volunteered, having some experience at painting.
> I did pretty good, and the guy, a parent. sang my praises to Mr. Eggers and
> that was enough to get me a recommendation for one of the most coveted jobs
> on campus - an assistant to the P.E Teacher which meant sweeping the gym
> floor a hundred times a day, and shooting a LOT of baskets.  This led to
> some skill level at basketball, which got me some attention and acceptance
> in a way only a sports-mad cloistered world can bestow.
>
> The other factor, was that I had my horse at the school, which was
> relatively rare.  A few girls did, but I was the first horse-crazy boy in
> living memory.
>
> Horses was another gift of my mom's.  She'd always been a horse fiend, from
> growing up on a palomino ranch in Colorado, till today.  I'd started with a
> pony, Short Ribs, and then a few years before high school, my dad bought me
> a purebred quarter horse mare, just greenbroke, named Sherry - short for for
> Dan's Cheri Sherry.  This compact and powerful Dan's Barr mare and I formed
> a bond that stems from two social animals, thrust into an alien environment
> with mainly each other for company. A very special relationship.
>
> Sherry had her stubborn quirks.  She'd had a bad experience with a wheel
> barrow, my little brother tied her to one and she spooked and freaked out
> and banged up her legs, and she didn't like being trapped or trailered and
> went through a lot of ropes and halters.  She was so strong, once she
> learned she could pretty much snap any rope made, it was hard to get her to
> stay tied against her will.
>
> Her other stubborness. was water on the trail.  Like a lot of young and
> inexperienced horses, for some reason, any water on the trail would make her
> snort and prance and instead of calmly stepping over the rivulet, like all
> the horses ahead of her, she had to make a big production and then jump in a
> mighty leap, all a-trembling and sweating.  Time after time.  I didn't think
> she'd ever get over it.
>
> Well, at Monterey Bay Academy, she finally got over it.
>
> Did I mention yet that this school was on the ocean?  That I could ride my
> horse, every day, on the beach?
>
> The first time she saw the Pacific, heard the waves, smelled the salt, she
> was as nervous and prancing as a boy returning to boarding school after
> summer vacation.  I was surprised I could even get her close to it, but then
> a wave came up and swished around her feet and she sorta had to deal with
> it.  And after a while, she came to love it.
>
> As did I.  We'd ride every day, from the hard-pack sand near the water to
> the shifting loose sands of the dunes.  There's nothing like riding on the
> sand to condition a horse and her leg tendons  became like iron.  There is
> no faster horse than a racing quarter horse, and when they are going flat
> out, there's as little resemblance to galloping as there is to trotting.
> There's no more up and down movement, it's all just flat, smooth and fast.
> Top speed is about 45 miles an hour and if you're headed into the wind, it
> makes the eyes sting.  We got to where I'd come to the stables, open the
> gate, grab onto her halter and take off.  No bridle.  No saddle and no
> worries.  The freedom and exhiliaration, especially compared to Seventh Day
> Adventist boarding school, cannot be described, only experienced.
>
> My experience came to a head, one home leave where I had to stay at school
> and help with the annual re-paint of the gym floor.  Everything had been
> going so great, all of life seemed so affirmative and wonderful that
> something in my young heart swelled to the point of the worshipful bursting
> point.  I remember so clearly the day.   I stood on the bluffs, watching the
> sun set over the pacific, the light streaming in an indescribable glory, and
> gave my heart completely to this concept known as "God".  I was so full, I
> just had to worship something, either God or myself, and I was idealistic
> enough then, anyway, to go the "right" direction on this equation.
>
> So there I did.  I poured out my soul.  I dedicated my life to God in this
> moment and then wheeled away, back to the stable, feeling wonderful,
> powerful, alive and pure.
>
> As we pounded past the laundry, I tried to steer Sherry away from this rusty
> old guy wire holding a chimney stack and she fought me.  She wanted to duck
> under it and take a shortcut.  We argued. I'd say she "fought the bit", but
> remember, she didn't have one.  So it was me jerking on her head and her
> going her own way.  Fast.
>
> Finally I decided that I'd better let her have her head because comprimise
> was likely to end in disaster, so I jerked her back in the way she wanted to
> go, just at the exact instance that she decided to follow my lead and head
> around it, and thus just as in a comedic case of bad timing, she zigged
> while I zagged and disaster became inevitable.  I threw myself backwards at
> the last half-second to avoid the rusty cable and WHAM.  Everything went
> dark.
>
> The wire caught me right under my chin, and tore open my throat.  A girl I
> didn't know, saw us, and ran to get help.  The first thing I remembered was
> Mr. Eggers, bending over me and saying "Oh my God, it's Cary"
>
> That shook me, because to have a respected and pious man like Mr. Eggers
> take the Lord's name in vain, meant this must be really serious.  And the
> way his voice cracked when he said it, this tough and macho Texan, I knew
> then that I was in trouble.
>
> He sat me up, and blood gushed over my t-shirt, soaking it completely and
> instantly.  The school nurse pulled up in a station wagon, and a few kids
> helped load me up and rush me to the emergency room in Watsonville.
> Everybody was so dead serious, and whispering, it was plain that they
> thought I was gonna die.  I thought so too.  But I realized that I wasn't
> worried about it.  Sometimes people describe such moments as, "making one's
> peace with God" but I'd just done that and so had the opportunity to reflect
> on the humor of the situation.  Here I'd just given my life to God, and here
> He was taking it.
>
> It made me laugh.
>
> Not out loud, but inside.  I felt light-hearted and unafraid.  One of the
> kids riding with me, I'll never forget, Mike Mashmeyer, a dreaded sophmore,
> was holding tight to my throat and I was having trouble breathing and I
> said, "you're choking me" and he replied, "well that's better than letting
> you bleed to death." and we laughed, and the mood in the car lightened, and
> I got to the hospital where the dr. said my carotid artery was fully exposed
> and thus I'd come within a hairbreadth of dying.
>
> Sherry didn't get off so easy neither.  Her ear had gotten knocked off and
> was hanging by some skin.  The vet sewed it back on and soon it was fine, as
> was I.  But for the rest of my life, I never thought much about death, or
> feared it at all.  It's all part of the joke, you see.
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