Love: A Higher Power

This is the sixth in a series of episodes, detailing my dawning realization, that I have some mental issues, that I must address, or risk losing those around me, who mean so much to me.  I do not know how many installments this will entail, because I do not have an outline, for this particular avenue, that my Life has chosen to pursue.  Because I have always found writing to be therapeutic, I am going to share my journey with anyone, who cares to read along.   Believe me, I am not having that much fun.

Love--A Higher Power

“Let me love you

Take me home to your religion for the night

Let me touch you

Teach me how to see the vision through my eyes

Turn the pages

Tell my story, let me face another day

Safe embraces, I feel it comin’ now

My captain’s on his [Her?] way.

Hey, my higher power

The world is spinnin’, but I’m not afraid.

Yeah, give me the power; it’s the beginnin’, the beginnin’ of another day.

Yeah.  Let me hold you

Take me back into the secrets of my mind

Let me know you 

Come and save me Lord

Don’t let me cross the line.”    

Boston, “Higher Power”

Is there a higher power than love?  This is not a test of opinion versus fact, but merely a rhetorical question, to which each person must determine the answer individually.  For me no higher power exists than love, because I am an existentialist, with room in my repertoire for a little Eastern Philosophy to sneak in there.  I believe that man has a lot of damn gall, thinking he somehow merits special consideration, when it comes to going beyond the shedding of our temporal shells, we call our bodies, and joining all that has lived before us, in the eternal sleep which is death.

Somehow, we are supposed to have this immortality attached to us, via our souls, and that we spend eternity either suffering or rejoicing, depending on how we spent our fleeting moment, here on Earth.  Who thinks this stuff up?  Because we have the ability to ration, and to laugh and cry, we are somehow elevated to the status of immortality?  I don’t buy it.

Furthermore, when Catholicism was in its heyday, ruling with an iron grip on every man, woman and child, within the sphere of feudal Europe, I think there may have been a need to keep the natives in their place, by creating a social structure, which kept people from objecting.  The hold that the Catholic Church had over me as a youth, is terrifying to me, because I was so willing to go along with the program.  Who wouldn’t like to think there is some supreme power, benevolently watching over me and mine, ensuring that our prayers and supplications, go heeded?  

Unfortunately, I see a lot of pain suffered by good people, and I find it hard to believe that this supreme power could be so uncaring, or has either the time or the inclination, to pay attention to my little neck of the universe.  It goes back to that “having a lot damn gall” business.

This sentiment brings me back to love as a higher power.  In our culture, it is a decided no-no, to either declare yourself to be agnostic, or even worse, a recovering Catholic, who plays the violin of cynicism more sweetly than the masters ever did.  In raising my three sons, all I ever taught them was the Golden Rule, with all of its ramifications, beginning and ending with responsibility and respect for life. 

I told them I would take them to the church of their choice, as soon as they told me which one that was.  I was not going to thrust my personal spiritual beliefs, down their craws, for them to digest and regurgitate for my smiling approval.  I would leave that to those, for whom these things are important.  I do not criticize those who do instill in their children, spiritual instruction in the religion of their choice; I just do not follow that path myself.

Now I am engaged in a conflict, on a new battlefield, that of my mind.  I am coming to the conclusion, that I must listen to my loved ones, and admit that I must seek immediate help, to begin to wrestle with the inconsistencies which seem to be surfacing, more and more regularly in my interactions, with those around me.  I am a fan of the clarifying question, being followed up with a clarifying process.

If I were in need of spiritual solace, at this intersection of my life, which would be the more appealing of my choices?  Would I look to a supreme being, of whom I have heard much, but of whom I have never had tangible evidence of its existence?  Or would I turn to love, in the form of Annie, who has stood by me for an eternity this past year, in which I danced a frenetic jig of freedom and confusion?

I was freed from the chains of anxiety, only to be ensnared by a mental force, far greater than the physical force of panic attacks, which has governed my life since age ten.  I have had a civil war being raged inside me, for the past 48 years, and the tables have finally turned.  Unfortunately, for me, they have turned for the worse.  Oh well, Mama never said it would be easy; she just said it would be.

Now I understand that I can deal with this temporary mental setback, because I have something that is permanent, something that I feel has the wisdom and strength to carry me through to my final scene here on Earth.  That something is love, and that strength is Annie.  And I am willing to throw all of my remaining stacks, into the pot, in a gamble that I am right, and that I will go further with Annie than with any other force.  

We are conducting services tomorrow, beginning with a walk up to Blue Rock, the altar of our spiritual union, and one that I do not expect to falter, anytime soon, just as I do not expect Annie to falter.  

“Yeah.  Let me hold you

Take me back into the secrets of my mind

Let me know you 

Come and save me Lord Annie

Don’t let me cross the line.”