With things winding themselves down to a quiet stillness in my life, things needing to be done having been done, I have a vision of the final picture arising in my consciousness. My mind, the ego, still has trouble, of course, with accepting that its existence will need to end by necessity, that no continual stream of miracles can prevent this. And the fear of death remains, as always. I do my best everyday to face it, and it is something which I have reflected upon since walking in the DeKalb Cemetery when I was a philosophy student in the 1980's, gazing at the tombstones, noting the dates, the length of people's lives, and the cryptic R.I.P. which adorns each one.
Synchronicities still arise, though, lately more than usual. Yesterday I was walking home from a friend's house and I felt my heart speak, asking me to stop into the Harold Washington library in search of a book or two. As usual I went directly to the 6th floor and wandered through the stacks containing religion, history, philosophy. I decided to do something which I had not done in a long while, which is to let the experience of the search itself decide what books I should choose. I came across two books on the holocaust by Primo Levi, one of which I had already read, and the other I had already once had in my possession but had decided not to read. When leafing through the pages of the one I had not read, I was about to place it back on the shelf when I saw that one of the chapters was entitled Shame. Having just written an entry where I contemplated the shame of standing naked before death, my heart signaled that this was a book which I needed to read, so I took it along with the one which I had already read. I then came across a book which contained the sparse writings of St. Francis. My spirit name being Francis, I was intrigued and decided to read the book based on this seemingly haphazard method of "heart selection."
On the walk home I recalled the times in my life when I had used this method, when the books chosen had a deep impact upon my psyche and future days. The first instance was in 1986 when I discovered a large, green hardback of the Bible written in contemporary English tucked into a corner of my bedroom. How it got into my bedroom I do not know, and why I had not discovered it earlier was also a mystery. I had recently decided to give up watching television and stop reading newspapers so I had extra hours to use and I gravitated to reading sections of the Bible at random each evening before going to bed. This had a profound impact on my mind and spirit, and consequently my life, which up to that time had been a chaotic mess of activity with no solid direction. I especially enjoyed reading the books of Wisdom and Sirach. When I discovered the Gospels the words of Jesus struck my heart like a sword and I read through the four books numerous times, with Luke being my favorite.
Around the same period I recall wandering through the library at the local community college and upon seeing a book entitled Essays, written by Emerson, I felt a compulsion to take the book off the shelf. I took it to a reading stall and opened it to Self Reliance and began to read. Like the Bible, this book transported my mind and spirit into a new realm which had a strong influence on the direction of my future life. A few years later, in my final year of university, I wrote my historical thesis on Emerson, and many an autumn day would sit beneath a beautiful tree near my dorm and read the essays. Not long after finding the Emerson book I discovered in the same library The Complete Letters of Vincent van Gogh. Volume I was missing so I took volume II and began reading one or two letters per night. This book also had a profound impact and was one of the reasons I chose to pursue photography for ten years, beginning in 1991.
It was refreshing, therefore, to return to this unusual method of selecting books to read. Even though my time on earth is coming to a close and my work here mostly complete, each day I am given to experience should be used to further strengthen body, mind, and heart, even though it is now a lost battle with the body.
Today ended with a beautiful synchronicity. I mentioned in my last entry that looming hunger will be a test of my faith and tonight I listened to an interview between two philosophers discussing times in their lives when they were close to ruin, possible death, etc, and just as their lives were about to be degraded and destroyed something unexpected happened which saved them. One of the philosophers noted that being tested in such a way is a positive thing because the last moment means you have to trust.
