I came home the other day after a trying conversation with a family member. She was struggling with a difficult life situation and I was encouraging her to seek some means of invisible support.
Pray, mediate, talk to your higher self, go and see a priest.
She scoffed.
She didn’t believe in stuff like that, stuff that she could not see. Her world did not expand beyond the addictions that had held her captive for so long.
‘If there is a God’ she demanded, ‘show him to me.’
Of course I could no sooner show her the definitive God than I could show her the quantum galaxies that lay at the very foundation of the world around us. I could neither articulate God nor explain God in a way that she would understand, other than to say that She was all around us, beneath every turned stone and inside every split log.
It bothered me that she could not see (and, to be honest, that I could not articulate) that there is a lot more out there than meets the eye. Just because you cannot immediately see it does not mean it has no existence. And it also bothered me because I wanted to help her, but the help she required was at that moment in time beyond my scope, (mostly because she did not really want help, or even - she felt - need help).
Her arrogance also bothered me.
I have learned a lot in my forty eight years on this spinning blue planet, enough to know that there is a higher power, and also enough to know that the articulation of this divinity is galaxies beyond my understanding, let alone my vocabulary. All I do know was that it is there, it is benevolent and I can access it when ever I want to.
I wondered why she could not understand. I wondered why she could not see. And my wondering was becoming a noxious fog that became one more thing that bothered me. So I meditated on my wonderings and I looked for a sign that might cut a clarity through the miasma of my thoughts.
It bothered me that she could not see (and, to be honest, that I could not articulate) that there is a lot more out there than meets the eye. Just because you cannot immediately see it does not mean it has no existence.
When I got home and walked through the garden to my house it came to me, I was given a clue; there were two ants on my garden path devouring a grain of sugar. They were completely unaware of my presence, or the fact that they were a size ten shoe away from total oblivion. I was way too big for them to see me. They would also, of course, have been completely unaware of the fact that they were - in our terms – only inches away from my house (which if glimpsed for even a second would have seemed to these tiny creatures like God Himself). My car, the road I lived in, the estate where my house was built, the city, the district, the country, and the world (in fact) would have been way beyond their perspective. As far as these two ants were concerned their (the) entire cosmos probably consisted of that piece of sugar and the ‘vast and infinite’ garden in front of my house.
The Ability to Change
Change is one of the keys to living happily. Now I'm not talking about the type of change that's in your pocket and jingles when you walk. Of course having that type of change is important but what I'm talking about is the ability to modify your plans when an obstacle arises.
Then I imagined these two ants talking to each other (as ants, I am sure, are prone to do). Rather like I had just been talking to my family member. One of the ants is saying to the other, ‘no I’m serious, I reckon there is a lot more out there than you and I can see, other creatures, other worlds, I bet there is a whole universe out there that we don’t even know about, things that you could not even begin to imagine (he was an articulate ant!).’ And the other ant, scoffing back arrogantly, mouth full of sugar, ‘Oh yea! So show me! You and your fancy ideas. If there was more out there I am sure I’d know about it, now be quiet and eat your dinner.’
The imagined vignette made me smile.
Just because the second ant cannot see the house does not mean that the house (the street, the city, the world) does not exist, and just because the first ant cannot articulate exactly what the house is, does not meant that his belief in the house is folly.
Then I remembered my family member and our conversation, my evangelical zest, her pedestrian denial, whilst all the time both of us, undoubtedly, being watched over by similarly Large beings, equally astounded and amused by the arrogance and by the very small perspective.
Suddenly I understood.
In an instant I could see exactly why people do not, will not or cannot see. Many are small minded, more still are arrogant, and a plethora are simply too scared to imagine that they might be little more than ants in some random cosmic garden. And I also understood that I should not allow their lack of vision and their lack of belief (their understandable fear) to affect me.
I know the house is there, even if my understanding of it is not yet exact, even though my articulation of it is not yet fully formed.
The house is there and It is accessible and that is all I need to know.
By: Phillip Starr (Registered IP 69.63.103.194) on 30-04-2008 00:23
We cannot see gravity. We cannot see happiness, nor can we see or weigh love. But we know they're there and we can see and feel the results of such things if we are willing to "open our eyes."
By: David (Registered IP 90.204.32.136) on 29-04-2008 07:02
Of course, it works both ways. If the house is too far away and too big for the ants to realise (which is nonsense anyway, ants roam rather far) then it also follows that the ants are far too numerous, too small, and too simple to be noticed by the house. Which, if true, would explain alot about God.
The idea that "just cos you can't see it, doesn't mean it isn't there" is very logical. However "just cos I say it is there even if you can't see it, means it IS there" is fundamentally flawed. I can't see the pyramids from my house, but I know they are there. I also can't see a 8 mile high purple and blue statue of David Beckham either, but no-one in their right mind would agree with me that it exists now, would they?
Philosophy and Opinion 
I came home the other day after a trying conversation with a family member. She was struggling with a difficult life situation and I was encouraging her to seek some means of invisible support.
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By: Phillip Starr (Registered IP 69.63.103.194) on 30-04-2008 00:23
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