There But for the Grace of God, Go I…

Last week I had a near-death-experience.

It had been a tough day. I was on my way home after twelve hours of babysitting my three granddaughters–whom I adore, by the way, but they’re all still in diapers and two of the three were fussy pretty much the entire day.

Anyway, I was driving home and it was dark. I was tired. My back hurt; my knees ached and I was looking forward to getting home and maybe taking a nice, long, relaxing soak in the tub.

For now though, I was stopped at a red light and I knew it would be a long light, so I reached down and inserted a new CD into the player: The Eagles’ “Desperado,” one of my all-time favorites–extraordinary vocal harmonies, and I just love that banjo in “Doolin-Dalton (Instrumental)”. That’s what I was thinking as I hit the play button, when out of the corner of my eye, I saw a dark-colored minivan run up the embankment to my right (I was in the right lane), its headlights suddenly blasting into my windshield, the van itself tilted at such an angle that I was surprised it wasn’t tipping over onto its side and into the car ahead of me. My first thought was “What are they doing? I guess they must have overshot the turn!” (A silly thought to have at a time like that.) But I quickly realized that the minivan’s front panel was dangling from the car, the passenger side was all smashed in and smoke was billowing from under the hood.

Reaching for my cell phone, I quickly dialed 911 to report the accident. People were jumping out of their cars all around me and running to check on the occupants of the van. It was all happening so fast!

After completing my phone call, I got out of my car, walked toward the minivan and asked if everyone was okay. A middle-aged man said, “Yes, everyone’s okay.” So not wanting to get in the way, I got back into my car and proceeded to merge with the now-bunching-up traffic to my left. It felt like time was standing still. I could not even make myself turn my music back on. I needed it quiet. It was similar to how I felt when I got the phone call that my dad had died–but nowhere near the intensity of that moment–shock, I guess you’d call it and an attempt to process the reality of something unexpected and horrible.

By the time I was able to move and I passed through the intersection, that’s when I saw the other car–a silver sedan smashed up pretty bad and sitting diagonally in the middle of the intersection. I said a silent prayer for all those involved, hoping that no one was seriously hurt. From the looks of both cars, it could have gone either way.

As I proceeded home, I had to pull over several times in order to allow firetrucks, ambulances and police cars to get through, and as I waited for them to pass, I realized that my hands were shaking and my heart was pounding. I was shook up for those who were involved in that wreck, and grateful that I was the third car back at that intersection, instead of the first. Had I been in the first car, I would have been hit. Maybe killed.

When I got home, I tried to pretend that it was just another day and that that accident didn’t really affect me, so I logged onto my computer and was instantly inundated with the problems of other people that had somehow suddenly become my responsibility. It was too much.

I got up, poured myself a glass of merlot, then closed my eyes and just breathed. And in that moment, all those problems and the 80 gazillion other critical things I needed to deal with RIGHT NOW suddenly became insignificant. I was alive. I was still breathing. What did it matter if so-and-so might think me rude because I’d forgotten to return his or her phone call or email? Or that that businessperson whom I had hoped would give me an interview turned me down because I was not a writer for People Magazine? And so what if there was still chocolate ground into the carpet from Halloween because I hadn’t had time to clean the house this week?

I sat back in my chair, and felt the wine slide down my throat–smooth and warm, and I thought about how lucky I was to have such beautiful grandchildren. Even though they’re fussy sometimes, I am so blessed to be able to see them often and to have a family and friends who love me, a roof over my head, food to eat and everything else I have. Because like life for those people involved in that accident, everything can change in an instant. You can be going about your day the way you’ve done for the past 20 years or more and all of a sudden something unexpected happens and changes everything in ways you never could have prepared for. What then? You deal with it. You have to. But maybe next time you’ll be a little more patient with that eldery woman who took forever to get through the line at the grocery store last week when you were in a hurry to get that special dinner on the table for your sweetie. Or maybe next time you won’t be quite so quick to judge your neighbor because he has tattooes or because he dresses differently than you, or has too many kids or not enough kids or believes in a different god or no god but is still doing his best to be a good person just the same.

Because maybe, just maybe, there won’t be a next time.

What is a Mystical Experience?

March 24, 2009

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What is the meaning of my life?
Is there really such a thing as God?

If you find yourself asking these questions, you’re not alone. I’ve wondered the same things all my life. In 2003, I found the answers; not by looking for them but through a mystical experience that sought me.

According to merriam-webster, the term mysticism means “the experience of mystical union or direct communion with ultimate reality.” It refers to an incident of connection to God, the Divine Source, the Most High or whatever term one feels comfortable calling It, accompanied by a feeling of inner peace and unimaginable bliss. It’s as if the experience itself has been orchestrated by a higher intelligence, something separate, yet inextricably entwined with one’s deepest sense of Being.

From a psychological standpoint, in “Body Mind Spirit,” K. Ramakrishna Rao describes it thus:

“Religious experience, the mystic experience, the peak experience, and all paranormal experiences may have one thing in common. They are the encounters with consciousness as such, pure consciousness in which there is no subject-object distinction … but a transformational process that often results in remarkable behavioral changes and beliefs and sometimes translates itself into informational content.”

How can I explain it so that you too, can know? I can’t, but I can give you a taste:

Have you ever felt the wonder of gazing at the stars on a warm summer night and thought about all the people over eons of time who might also have witnessed them?

Have you considered that the concept of time may be nothing but illusion or had the feeling that you’ve been here before?

Have you relished the sensation of freedom when taking off your shoes and socks and burrowing your bare feet into powdery, warm sand?

Have you known a sense of smallness as you stood at the base of a mighty glacier and questioned what a responsibility it would be to be a glacier? Or pondered what the  glacier knew that you didn’t?

Have you ever strained your ears to hear the messages these things have been trying to tell you?

These are the flavors of mystical experience.

Have you appreciated the tiny eyelashes of a newborn baby or felt the fragile hand of an elderly person with its paper-thin skin, blue veins rising just below the surface? Knowing your grip could easily crush that frail hand, your instinct instantly acts to protect something so tender and vulnerable.

Have you ever fallen so deeply into art where you are no longer conscious of where your identity ends and the identity of the artist and the work itself begins?

These moments are the first steps on the path to mystical experience.