“We have only this moment, sparkling like a star in our hand, and melting like a snowflake.”
– Sir Francis Bacon, Sr.
This life we have right here and now, in terms of “infinity,” is just a moment in time. Of course time is of our making, because everything, to us, happens in a linear way. We’re born, we live, and we die, in that order. There is no other way.
One thing Sir Francis Bacon doesn’t say, and maybe he didn’t realize it, is that both the star and the snowflake don’t cease to exist when they “die,” they only change form. Because they are made up of energy, (atoms, molecules, cells) their chemical makeup may change, but they do not cease to exist.
So, while we may cease to exist by a doctor’s standards when we “die,” we, in reality, only change form. Being made up essentially of water, it evaporates, and the remainder of the material returns to the earth, as basic elements.
As to what happens during this transition, one might say that the inherent energy we are made up of is transformed into another form, or as a person of thought, I believe we return to our maker, the universal energy some call God, Buddha, Wakan Tanka or the divine creator. Whatever happens, it is of little import here, as we would probably never know our former life, if we are reincarnated.
But, if, in this thing we call life, our purpose is to “sparkle like a star,” then how do we sparkle like a star?
That, of course, is a personal choice, but I believe it is to live our life to the fullest, while doing our best to do harm to no one, to be good stewards of the earth, and to do unto others as we would have them do unto us.
In order for us to do this, to know right from wrong or good from bad, we have been endowed with the ability to think for ourselves. The first things that seemed to come to our awareness was survival and self-preservation. Even in Jesus’ day, people had a hard time comprehending his message, because the the people were still in survival mode.
Today, the speed of development of everything has accelerated dramatically, and many fewer people are any longer in a survival mode with nature, but the survival mode has become a socio-economic, pseudo religious-political reality. It is away from this mode that the world needs to evolve in order for all our stars to really shine brightly in this world WE have made for ourselves. If there is any job or purpose for us in this moment of time, it is for us to be the highest expression of who we can be, to lose the judgment we may have as part of our story, which keeps us from accepting those around us as friends and not foes, and to live from that higher place, which may encourage others to see that it is a safe place to be and therefore transition into that place themselves.
That takes a great deal of faith and trust to allow oneself to be open to change and be vulnerable to allow that change for themselves.
Are you ready?
-jts