|
No Return Policy
A few months ago, I went to visit a spiritual medium. He said something that I didn't pay much
attention to at the time. All of us, he explained, have led multiple lives here on earth, but many
are now experiencing their final incarnations.
I possess only a very rudimentary knowledge about past life theory, but I think it goes something like
this: We are spirits who exist on multiple planes. We take the human form on earth in order to
master certain lessons that build upon those learned during prior lives. In other words, it's
all about reckonings and karma. If we get away with too much in this lifetime, we?ll pay for
it next time around. Eventually, we all have to pay our dues.
Except maybe not. According to my medium, there is a huge cohort that is not returning.
Why? Are we being yanked because we have failed miserably on the job, to be replaced by an entirely
new spirit team which has never been to earth before? Is this the equivalent of the coach pulling
out his first string because of their wretched performance and putting in the bench? Have the grand
designers of the universe decided to "throw the bums out" in the same way that the electorate chooses
to rid itself of the dominant party every couple of elections?
Or is it the opposite: have many of us accomplished everything that we set out to do?
I could see that case being made about inhabitants of certain European nations, like Norway
or Sweden, that have pretty much eradicated poverty, guarantee at least a year of paid maternity
leave, and long ago abandoned the death penalty. These are societies that take care of their
old and sick, and actually believe in rehabilitation instead of locking people up forever.
Their safety net is strong. And perhaps one could argue the same about those peaceful
cultures that exist in pockets around the globe - the ones that - "tend to cherish gentleness,
nonaggression, and interpersonal harmony."
But the rest of us? Come on, we can't even pass a public option in this country. We're still bankrupting
people for getting cancer, for God's sake. We've got the highest incarceration rate in the world, and continue
to lavish resources on jails instead of schools. Until we agree to a single payer health care system, or
finally abolish capital punishment, I say we mandate that every being alive today in the United States
has to make at least one return visit to this planet. No one gets to leave the premises permanently
until we collectively get the job done.
Recently, I listened to a prominent defense attorney speak about his experiences representing poor people
on death row. He said he used to take comfort in Martin Luther King's words that "the arc of the moral
universe is long, but it bends toward justice." But he doesn?t believe that anymore. From his perspective
on the ground, he sees no steady progress in the way we treat our fellow human beings. Maybe the arc just
sways one way, and then another, no discernible line trends either way. We?re not on some steady path
toward enlightenment after all. Perhaps the earth experiment has gotten away from the grand designers,
and they are getting ready to pull the plug on us and start over somewhere else.
If that's true, what is there to do in my remaining time here? I want to swim nude in lake water that
cloaks me like velvet. I want to stay up all night so immersed in conversation that I forget to go
to bed. I want to cradle my grandchild in my arms and stare into his or her eyes. I want to be
around as my kids grow up and know that they are okay, in this lifetime, at least. I want to see
one on each side, smiling at me and holding my hands, when I draw my last breath. I want to write
words that cause someone, or a bunch of someones, to cry. I want to laugh so hard that I don't
care that I might pee in my pants. I want to dance outside to Bruce Springstein on a summer's
evening, my face lifted up to the gentle breeze as it glides by me, under a moon-lit sky, with my
arm wrapped around someone I love. I want to dig my bare feet into warm sand, staring straight
into the light blue abyss, calm and endless, in front of me.
Johanna Wald has been published in The Externalist, MotherVerse, and Pilgrimage Press,
and has two essays due for publication this spring: one in an anthology about the election of 2008 and one in SLAB Journal.
Email: Johanna Wald
Return to Table of Contents
|